Rolfe Barnard delivers a powerful sermon titled 'Goodbye God,' emphasizing the spiritual decline in America and the urgent need for repentance. He draws parallels between the story of Jonah and the current state of rebellion against God, highlighting how many are fleeing from His presence and commands. Barnard warns that this rebellion leads to destruction and urges listeners to recognize the importance of holy living as evidence of true salvation. He challenges the complacency of Christians and calls for a revival of genuine faith and obedience to God. The sermon serves as a wake-up call to confront the spiritual apathy and rebellion prevalent in society today.

...any man to receive wearing the rest of his weapon is prepared. We ask King of the people of Nassau to remove God, to make a special effort to bring some XGI to hear our message on revelations of an ex-captain Saturday night. The average boy among the 12 million young men that were in uniform in the last war, what contact they had with the preacher, he was either a beer drinker, a cigarette sucker, a woman chaser, a dirty joke teller, a fellow who made fun of holy living. We do not yet realize the terrible damage that was done to our national life by the contact of 12 million of our boys with preachers. I'm going to say some very plain things here Saturday night, things that if they do not bring God's people to prayer, it'll just prove what some of us are beginning to suspect, that maybe God has given up on America. Maybe that's so. Billy Graham says that he believes that God's given us two more years to repent. He's a little more optimistic than I am. It may be too late now, I do not know. I want you to hear that message and I want you to help me. Tomorrow night, why you can revel in booze and lust, come your nose at God, reject Jesus as Lord, resist the Holy Spirit, why doesn't God kill you and send you to hell the moment you do that? Let's find the Bible answer to that question tomorrow night. My Lord says, so not among sons. So not among sons. It is the deep conviction of my soul that it's been 40 years since we plowed the ground spiritually in America. And the purpose behind this layman's vaccine meeting, and my purpose, is that we'll seek to do what's not being done much and come to help godly pastors. I mean godly pastors, I don't want to help a preacher who will not cry aloud and spare naught and cause the people to hear about that transgression. I don't want to help them. I don't want them to like them. If you have them in your city, I don't know about that, you do. I don't want to help them. I don't want to hurt them. I don't want anybody to hear them. But I want to help every godly preacher in these awful, last, desperate days. I want to try to plow some ground. Where we live in Winston-Salem, the issue is not trying to get people to make confession. The issue is not trying to get people to join churches. Most of them done done that. The issue is godly living. The end to salvation is holiness. And the only evidence anybody got that he's a saved person is that he's living a holy life. There is absolutely no assurance of salvation any other place. Now we're plowing. We're running into a lot of opposition. We're trying to challenge rebellion. I made up my mind, and I began to pray for god to let me get out of the army. I finally resigned. It looked like it wasn't letting out anyhow. And I said, Lord, if you'll let me out of this mess, I'll never go hold another meeting without making this my motto. We're going to have revival or rebellion. A revival or a rebellion. And we're coming close now. These two and a half hours on the radio are being mightily used up, God. And multitudes of people are gnashing their teeth. And that's a prelude to great victory or the prelude to terrible judgment. And I'm asking every child of God under the tent and over the radio to be much in prayer in these critical days that we shall so please God we'll see him work in mighty power. Tonight the subject is goodbye, God. I read from the book of Jonah. The book of Jonah, the first three or four verses. Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise and go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord and went down to Joppa. And he found a ship going to Tarshish, so he paid the fare thereof, went down into it to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so the ship was like to be broken. Do you remember how, that they had a meeting on that ship and they said there's somebody causing trouble here, and they cast lots and the lots fell on Jonah and they dumped him overboard. And God had prepared a fish for that special occasion. The fish swallowed up Jonah, and God let him stay in his body, in the belly of the fish, in his soul in hell for three days and nights. Somebody said they didn't believe a man could stay in a fish's belly three days and nights and live. And I said, no, nobody claims that Jonah lived. The Bible said plain about it, that God killed him there in the belly of the fish. And he cried from the very pit of hell, if you read the entire book of Jonah. Though Jonah found out that salvation is of the Lord, and when he got saved, while the Lord told him to go and preach under the city, the preaching that I bid thee, and old Jonah got up, and here he skedaddled and went to Nineveh, and as soon as he hit the city limits, he said, yet forty days, and God's going to destroy this city. And they had the only citywide revival that's ever been recorded. We talk about a citywide revival, we know good and well we're not going to have a citywide revival. We know that confusion is everywhere. We know there's no city in America where you can get all of the churches to get together around the truth of the gospel. But we do use that term for expediency, and we have the precedent of one city where they had a citywide revival. All the preachers preached was judgment coming, you better repent, and beginning with the king, on down to the holiest man, they repented and clothed themselves in sackcloth and ashes, and got right with almighty God. Now Jesus believed the story of Jonah and the fish. He put his stamp of approval on it by quoting it from this record in the New Testament. They tell us now that this story is not so, but Jesus thought it was, and with no apology for believing that it's an actual occurrence, I want tonight, if we can, to learn some lessons from Jonah. Jonah, the man who turned his back on the will of God and the command of God. Jonah, the prodigal son of the Old Testament. Jonah, who tried to run away from the voice of God and throw away all restraint like the prodigal son in Luke 15. Both of them ran away from God. Both of them got back, one by way of a hog pen and the other by way of a fish's belly. I want us to learn the story and some lessons from this man who attempted to tell God goodbye. Now scripture is many-sided and broad-edged. Some preachers sometimes get offended when I preach that Jonah was unfaithful. Well, I don't know. It's very difficult for me to live in a world with me being the only person that's right on everything. I try to be tolerant with everybody else, but nearly everybody I know is wrong somewhere, and as far as I know, I've never made a mistake, you know. But you'll be tolerant with me. Now, the reason I cannot preach that Jonah was a backslider is because the scripture does not so teach. It doesn't say that Jonah was the prophet when God came and told him to go and cry against the city of Nineveh, just that his name was Jonah and his old man was the name Amittai. And God came and said to Jonah, I want you to get up now and skedaddle down to the city of Nineveh and cry against it for its wickedness has come up before man. And instead of that, old Jonah rose up to flee from the presence of the Lord. Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you never get another word, Ralph Barnett says while he's here, you get this, a Christian will not run from God. A Christian will not run from God. And old Jonah did just exactly like every unsaved God-hating, law-hating, Christ-rejecting sinner when God begins to press his claims upon the sinner's soul. The old sinner skedaddles and tries to do his death-level best to get away from every restraint and from the voice of a holy God. And then the reason I preach that Jonah was not a backslider is the scriptures were plain that he didn't get saved until God Almighty hemmed him up, got him in a fish's belly, killed him plumb dead as he has to do to save anybody, and Jonah found out and cried, Salvation is of the Lord. You know, the first lesson I'd love for us to learn tonight is that Jonah, like every sinner, was getting along just fine until God began to interfere with his life, until God in mercy brought his first command upon him. Every old sinner, until God Almighty begins to deal with him, is just getting along fine. Thank you. A woman phoned me today and she was weeping and she said, I'm so greatly disturbed. Well, thank God. This is one thing that Ralph Barnett knows. Practically everybody in the city of Natchez, if you had right good sense, you'd be disturbed. Most of you Christians, if you are saved, you certainly are mighty lax in the matter of obedience. And brother, you better not let another thumb go down until you render God Almighty every day of your life perfect as far as your motive and heart's desire is concerned. Obedience to Almighty God. I'm so sick and tired of going up down this country and begging Christians to pray. I don't believe that, but I believe if you ever get saved, all the devils in hell couldn't keep you from praying. I'm so sick and tired of this stuff they call the gospel that begs God's people to live holy lives. I don't believe that. I don't believe you're a Christian unless you're striving with all your might and your means to live a holy life. I'm so sick and tired of this stuff about evangelists going up down the country and they had 1,500 people make first-time professions and 2,600 backsliders reclaimed. I don't believe that. Somebody says, well, I used to be a Christian and then I fell into sin and for years I had my back turned on a beat. I don't believe a word of it, not a word of it. I tell you, we got into that by preaching this furious gospel that Jesus will save you and sometimes if it's convenient you can surrender to him as Lord. You listen to me. Listen to me. Rebellion has got to be challenged and it's got to be revealed and it's got to be conquered and it's got to be crushed and it's got to be repented of and it's got to be forsaken and brought and laid at Jesus' feet before God Almighty's Savior. Rebellion's got to be crushed. My Lord's not going to plant the white flag of peace in your heart while you've got a shotgun turned at him. He's not going to do it, my friend. He's not going to do it. Oh, hear me. What men and women need now is not re-consecration. What men and women need now is not re-dedication. What men and women need now is salvation. Salvation. My Bible says my sheep hear my voice and they follow me. It don't say nothing about a Christian order for God. It don't say nothing about a Christian order for God. It says my sheep hear my voice and they follow me. They follow me. My sheep listen to me. The Lord says, my child, listen to me. Listen to me. Old Jonah says, oh, no, sir. I'll not do it. See, he's not saved. That's how it always goes. Somebody says, well, I believe what? Okay, okay. But he wouldn't listen to God. Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice. My sheep hear my voice. They obediently hear it and they follow me. They follow me. Hear me tonight. Rebellion's got to be revealed. Oh, my friends, listen to me. Rebellion's got to be challenged. Secret rebellion. That's the word for iniquity. Secret rebellion. And here's old Jonah just getting along fine. Everything's hunky-dory and God Almighty began to interfere. The old time preacher said, I was going merrily on my road to hell and God interfered. And he said, sure got to interfere or this whole world will go to eternal hell. You know, when God in mercy begins to press his character and his demands, the sinner rebels and starts running. That's where old Jonah did. The fool has said it as hard, no God for me. And yonder in the days of the exodus when the people were settled down in the best part of Egypt and Egypt is a place of sin and they're getting along fine. And then God raised up Moses and sent him down there to prepare them and lead them out of Egypt into the promised land. And when they began to suffer a little bit under the hard task masters of the Pharaohs, these people had been just getting along fine till God began the process of delivering them out of Egypt into the promised land. They rose up and begged the old Moses go on about his business and leave them alone! Leave them alone! That's the cry of men today. Leave me alone! Mind your business! Leave me alone! They say to God. If not with their lips but with their hearts they say depart from me! Depart from me, oh God! Men want to be left alone. Men want to be left alone. There are thousands of people hearing our broadcast and coming to this tent now. That rebellion in their hearts has been challenged. The rebellion against holy living. The rebellion against obedient service. The rebellion against crowning Jesus as absolute Lord of your life. And they're in a state of rebellion. I'm asking God's people to mightily cry to God that that rebellion shall be crushed for the power of God. And they shall be brought and cleansed and throw up their hands and say oh God have mercy on me. An old sinner in your sight. I don't rebellion to go on because rebellion leads to eternal hell. And here's old Jonah and he said leave me alone. Leave me alone. I'm gone! I'm not going to do what you've got to say. So he rebelled. He rebelled against the command of almighty God. Now that didn't get him lost. He is already alienated. Men don't get lost by running from God. They get lost. They're already lost. They do their running from God when God in mercy begins to deal with them and press his commands upon them. When a man has faced the face with truth he's got to rebel against it or he's got to yield to it. And old Jonah's up against it now. But he's got to obey or he's got to reveal the fact that he's not willing to mind God. And so old Jonah instead of doing what God said he rose up to plead to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. And he went down to Joppa and he bought a ticket on a boat to dive Tarshish. And Tarshish they tell us in the Bible is anywhere away from the presence of almighty God. I woke up to the ticket agent down there in the city of Joppa and I said where's everybody going? Why he said they're going to Tarshish. I said where is Tarshish? Why he said it's the capital of the faraway land. It's founded on the east by desire to be let alone. It's founded on the north by determination to have one's own way. It's founded on the south by none of your business. It's founded on the west by bleak barren ways to the Christless eternity. Tarshish is not a location it's a relation. Tarshish is anywhere away from almighty God. And I'm curious about it. And as I'm down in Joppa and see old Jonah get on the boat and turn as he walks up the gangplank and says goodbye God I'm going to get away from you where you can't tell me what to do. No God for me. I walk up to the ticket agent and say I'm curious. I want to see a ticket. I want to see the ticket these people are buying. He said well I'm afraid you'll just have to wait a while. I got such a crowd here and I want you folks in Nash's to be patient with me. We'll have to hang around here a little bit before I can get up to the ticket agent and get him to let me see a copy of the ticket that people are buying. For the multitude are rushing climbing over one another's backs to see who can get to the ticket agent first and get a ticket to drive them away from the voice of a holy God who says in these days be ye holy as I am holy. This generation is doing its dead level best to get on any kind of boat they find that'll take them as far away from any of the righteous commands and holy provision of a holy God. But while after much patience I get up to the ticket agent window and he gives me a copy of the ticket that everybody's buying to get away from the presence of God. But while after much patience I get up to the ticket agent window and he gives me a copy of the ticket that everybody's buying to get away from the presence of God. And I read on the ticket and the first thing I notice on the ticket is this ticket is not transferable. In other words you gotta pay your own way if you get on a boat that takes you with your back turned toward the will of God in your life. Takes you with your face turned toward eternal hell in the life to come. I tell you my friend I warn you tonight you'll have to pay your own way. You may be running with some group or some individual with your neck bowed against God. You may be hurrying to buy a ticket getting on a boat to try to get clear away from God's voice. But remember that someday that ticket got to be paid for and when that day comes you'll have to pay the fare of the ticket and the trip on the boat till you get away from almighty God. When day day comes and it will come the crowd on your boat can never help you bear your anguish your heartache and your remorse. I look at the ticket and I see a second thing written on the ticket no return privilege. And I ask you what does that mean? Why he said these boats will take you away but none of them ever come back. Sometimes you're out there to buy a ticket and said you want a round trip or one way but these boats that lead the men and women away from the voice of almighty God from the will of almighty God from the holy commandments and demands of a holy God. Every one of them gets you away further and further and further away but none of them will bring you back none of them will bring you back. Old Jonah got on a boat and he skedaddled toward Tarshish and he never did get back to God on that old boat and if God had let him alone he'd still landed down in eternal hell. No return privileges if God leaves you alone. When you buy a ticket on one of these boats my friend abandon all hope when you step up the gang tank and wave goodbye God that boat will land in hell. Then I look at the ticket and read another thing you youngsters get quiet will you please it bothers the preacher a whole lot. I read in the third place on that ticket good over any of the following routes and I asked the ticket age what does that mean well he said one boat goes round that way and another boat goes round that way and another boat goes shoot that way and another boat goes over yonder but said they all wind up at the same place and that's the city of Tarshish away from the presence of God and I walk along the wharf and I see boats coming and going and they have different names on them and then I walk back and I said all these boat trips go to the same place and the ticket age says yes every one of them they go round a little different way but when they get to their destination they've taken a man away from all hope away from all expected mercies of a holy God and I look at the names on some of those boats and I see a great big boat that crowded today and on the boat is written the word C O O Z E boo and I see them crowding up the gangplank to get on that boat in the city of matches boys and girls men and women in the church and out buying that whiskey whether it's legal or whether it's legal or illegal it's still hellish it's still a sin against almighty God and the nation that tells it or the state that tells it or the county that tells it or the city that tells it or the human being that tells it or he who drinks it will find out that booze will land you in hell but it'll never bring you to almighty God I look at that gilded boat and see the unsuspecting fools crowding on another's back to get up the gangplank to drown the way that troubles in a sea oh forget me not and I see the boat as it hurries out and I see it disappear and I wonder will it ever come back and I walk up to the ticket agent he said no the folks on that boat will go on and on and on the other way but that boat does not come back oh my friends of the crowds that sail on the good ship booze loaded with good fellas you'll find many in the gutter the tank halls the brothel in rags in poverty and in jail and every last one of them expected to quit the ship before the wreck but then I'll never do that poor booze victim ladies and gentlemen let me tell you something now I've preached in houses of ill pain by the hundreds I've preached in many saloons it's not much trouble to get a boozer to make a profession the trouble is to get him to quit his booze that's right it's not much trouble to get a poor scarlet woman to profess faith in Christ if you just know a few tricks of psychology you can do that she's scared to go to hell but brother you can't get her to quit her life of shame and I remind you that salvation is to live salvation is not professional salvation is not you doing something for Christ salvation is God doing something for you a poor old booze victim was found in a sloppy joint one night stone dead and as people dressed his body for burial they found a note in his old soggy clothes that note read I leave to my children the humiliation of having a drunken father to my poor wife I leave the memory of a wrecked romance and the horrid nightmare of a booze cursed home to my mother I leave to all the sorrow one poor loving heart can bear and to the devil I leave this poor alcohol soaked soul on which he's had a mortgage for 15 years Theodore Kyle said to be a sober man costs the restraint and the scoff of fools to be a tipler costs a ruined purse a ruined body and a lost soul This boat of booze will take you away from God but it'll never bring you back I don't care if men of distinction drink it the men of distinction who drink it are lined up in hell I don't care if the best people drink it the best people will wind up in hell I don't care if our churches are nearly empty the big churches on Sunday night and the members are out of cocktail parties as they are in most places in this country the people who indulge in it are spitting in the face of God they're calling the Bible a liar they're insulting God and they're headed for eternal hell and I warn you that the book says how much you cry and how much you sob no drunkard shall enter the kingdom of heaven and I look and I see another boat and I find out it's headed for the same place Tarsus and I look and I see that that boat has written on it letters the big word l-u-s-t lust lust lust lust lust the lust of the flesh the lust of the flesh and that boat is crowded today with men and women from the best families men and women boys and girls men and women from our churches men and women from our homes men and women in government men and women in society poor men and women rich men and women the one big sin of this generation is the sin of lust you cannot advertise an automobile without the picture of a naked girl you cannot advertise a pack of cigarettes without the picture of a naked girl you cannot advertise a county fair without the picture of a near naked girl you cannot put on anything now without appealing to the gaze of men on the flesh of women and we are paying the price for now we are eating six oranges in our city in our hotels in our night clubs in our high schools have you ever heard down here of the club now that's going around they tell us I can't believe it but they tell us that it's going around the high school to hope it hasn't reached this far and it is the club that young girls are invited to enter and no girl can be a member of that club if she still retains her virtue the girl must swear that she's no longer virtuous in order to become a member of that club that now is trying to organize in every high school in America God grants that that plan shall fail oh my soul mama listen to me father this folk call us is crowded with this generation of men and women boys and girls a little girl came up to me tonight and she said brother barnard is it a sin to wear shorts around the house thank god for a sensitive little girl she's not hard like these women who plump their nakedness to arouse the passions of men and the some there I know that almighty god any woman who dresses that way denies that she's a fallen creature and needs a savior and thus is not saved I'm telling you the truth my friend I know I know the best church women do it but the best church women are going to hell for flaunting their flesh in the nostrils of a god who commands women to dress modestly that's what god says god says for women to dress modestly listen to me this generation is going to hell on skid row the scarlet pen and I warn you my friends that no adulterer shall enter the kingdom of heaven and I warn you that unless your heart is made pure by the spirit application of the blood of christ to give you a clean heart that you're not going to enter the portals of glory and I rope on down and I see another boat and it's going the same direction and I see written on it the word pleasure the word of god says that in the last days men shall be lovers not of pleasure there's nothing wrong with pleasure get that in your pipe and smoke it there's nothing wrong with pleasure god wants people to have pleasure god wants people to have pleasure he just wants you to get it in the right place at the right time but this scripture doesn't say men shall be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of god this scripture says that men shall be lovers of pleasure in the singular and that's it now bless god I used to play baseball the only person that kept me off the New York Giants team was the manager he wouldn't let me let me off the New