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What the Early Church Preached
Rolfe Barnard

Rolfe P. Barnard (1904 - 1969). American Southern Baptist evangelist and Calvinist preacher born in Guntersville, Alabama. Raised in a Christian home, he rebelled, embracing atheism at 15 while at the University of Texas, leading an atheists’ club mocking the Bible. Converted in 1928 after teaching in Borger, Texas, where a church pressured him to preach, he surrendered to ministry. From the 1930s to 1960s, he traveled across the U.S. and Canada, preaching sovereign grace and repentance, often sparking revivals or controversy. Barnard delivered thousands of sermons, many at Thirteenth Street Baptist Church in Ashland, Kentucky, emphasizing God’s holiness and human depravity. He authored no major books but recorded hundreds of messages, preserved by Chapel Library. Married with at least one daughter, he lived modestly, focusing on itinerant evangelism. His bold style, rejecting “easy-believism,” influenced figures like Bruce Gerencser and shaped 20th-century Reformed Baptist thought.
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Sermon Summary
In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of recognizing Jesus as Lord. He explains that Jesus, who died on the cross, is now seated on the throne as the administrator of God's business. The preacher emphasizes that Jesus' resurrection is the heart of the gospel and that salvation comes through faith in Him. He also emphasizes that it is not up to individuals to decide whether to accept Jesus as Lord or not, as every knee will eventually bow before Him. The sermon references Acts chapter 2 and Matthew chapter 22 to support these points.
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Good to be back, good to be the guest of this dear brother. Look forward to it. Several months I've come to you in a bad shape. In 61 I was hospitalized and dead-eyes or whatever you call it for nine months and then I've been preaching now for quite two years and I broke down again in May and I've been in terrible, terrible pain. I got home last Saturday and I've been going to the doctor two hours and a half each morning and must continue to do so this week. And then next week the Lord's going to let me rest and I hope to get some relief. I'm not in any pain tonight and the first day I haven't been in any pain in over two months now. But my back is so sore and I have to be careful. I'm glad it is a Bible conference where I can not exert myself. I always exert myself too much. That's the reason I'm in the shape I'm in now. It's good to see old faces. I don't mean that, I mean faces I've seen before and some of the newer. Now I suggest that you take seriously the pastor's remarks to bring your pencil and paper because I'll turn the sketches so quickly that I'll lose you. And if I ask you, wait a few turns, all of them, we'd be here till midnight and we won't get out at least by 11.30. So I think it would define the pastor as desired and I think this is worthy. Every local church certainly ought to have some sort of a missionary conference and what we call an evangelist campaign. And I think it might define, especially down south where we holler loud but don't know much about what we're supposed to believe. I think it is worthy, a worthy thing to have somebody come and help instruct God's people. You can't teach a lost person anything, but you can teach a sinner. You can teach a Christian. And we need to know these things. Now tonight, if you will turn in the Bible, first of all, to the book of Matthew, that's chapter 22. This is a Bible conference, let me see your Bibles. You got them? Well, bless the Lord. All right, I hope you can follow now. And I'm going to speak tonight on the most important teaching of the word of God, which is where it starts to talk and go down. We might not have any tomorrow. I'm going to speak tonight on who Jesus is. Who Jesus is. Who Jesus is. There's a lot of controversy about it and a lot of awful ignorance and a lot of blasphemy. And this subject, if we don't have any more services, it might be all right because there isn't. But one question that really is important, and that's the question for the Bible study tonight, who is Jesus? Everybody has some opinion of Jesus. The modernists say he's a great teacher. The Jews said he was quite a prophet. The Mohammedans and Buddhists, the world's greatest, that is, for a number of religions, say he was a prophet. And for about 60 years we've called him a Savior. And I think that's the most important question you'll ever face, and one that you might well spend the rest of your life facing. And at the end of your life, if you come up with the right answer, you'll be a very blessed and happy person. Who is Jesus? Who is Jesus? He asked this question in the book of Matthew, at chapter 22, beginning at verse 41. While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, What think ye of Christ, whose Son is he? They said unto him, He is the Son of David. He said unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord? Saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool. If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? And no man was able to answer him a word, neither doth any man from that day forth ask him any more questions. Tonight I'd like to examine afresh what the early Church preached about the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. I wish you'd listen to me tonight. I had the happy privilege some days since of coming to the closing services of what we call a revival campaign. The young pastor, he was a young pastor, had gone down a few miles and engaged the services of a young brother pastor to come over and heist the tomb for us, be the psalm leader. So I had two precious young preachers, both of them graduates of the school Brother Wilson says he went to. And I had them preach, too. And I remember that the young preacher who acted as psalm leader, he got up in the psalm service before the last service and he said, I went on today and burned up all my sermons, that I hadn't got a sermon left. But he said, I got the Bible. And he said, I just want to say this, that if nothing else took place during the meeting, I did at least burn up my old sermons where I preached the little Jesus. And from now on I'm going to preach the Lord Jesus Christ where he is, sitting on the throne, God's prime minister, to whom God has turned the disposition of this world and your eternity-bound soul. I'm going to preach the big Jesus whom God exalted and sat down on the throne and turned this world over to. This world doesn't know anything about the enthroned Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ. The biggest question you'll ever face is who is Jesus of Nazareth? In the 16th chapter of Matthew, the Lord Jesus asked a question. He said, what are folks saying about me? Whom do men say that I am? And they answered, well, they say that you're a prophet. Some of them think you're Elijah. Some of them are not certain. They think maybe you might be Isaiah. Others are not willing to give you a name, but they do say that you are a prophet. And then the Lord Jesus turned to them and said, well, that's what people are saying about me. They've looked me over, they've heard of me, and they've said that I'm a man sent from God with a message from God that's as high as an unregenerated man without being born from above. That's as high a compliment as a man can pay Jesus Christ. Then he turned to the disciples and said, whom do ye say that I, the Son of Man, am? And Peter, answering for all of them, said, Thou art the Messiah, the Son of the living God. And the Lord Jesus said, Blessed art thou, Son of God. The flesh and blood hath not revealed their Son to thee, but thy Father which is in heaven. Now watch it. At that stage, the disciples, by special revelation, the Spirit of the living God opened their understanding, and they found out that at that time they found out who Jesus was. He was the fifth one from God to be the King of the Jewish nation. But John chapter 1 says, the gospel of John, I want you to follow me now, because I'm going to hang you up in a minute, get you to change your language, if you will, and be true to the soul. Listen to me. The Lord Jesus Christ came and brought his credentials. He worked miracles, did many mighty works, did all the things that the Old Testament prophesied he'd do and be and so forth. And he offered himself to the Jewish nation as their King. Is that right? And they rejected him. Is that right? He came into his own, that's his own nation, and his own household received him not. They didn't object to going to heaven when they died, but they didn't want him as their King. And they turned to his offer. He presented himself as the King of the Jews, the Messiah, the deliverer of the Jewish nation, and they rejected him. Now watch it carefully. And the rejection went this far, that they nailed him to a tree outside the holy city of Jerusalem. Now watch it. Watch it. From that hour to this, Jesus Christ has not been subject to your acceptance or your rejection of him. This world will never have the opportunity to accept or reject Jesus Christ again. And that little Jesus that you say you accepted as your personal Savior, there's no record of him in the Bible. He's a product of your imagination. He's not the Christ of God. For the scriptures tell us that all those men rejected Jesus Christ as King and nailed him to a cross. Watch it now. God Almighty did something. He raised him from the dead and sat him down at his right hand on the throne and turned this world over to him. And now men are subject to his acceptance or rejection, not him to you. I wish you believed that. I wish you believed that. You know where Jesus Christ is right now? At? He's on the throne. Isn't that where he is? Isn't that what the Bible says? Turn, if you will. Let's just read two or three scriptures. Acts 2. I want you to turn with me. This is familiar. But you turn with me to Acts 2 and read, beginning, for instance, at verse 32 of Acts 2. Let's see where the Lord Jesus Christ is. Acts 2, verse 32. This Jesus, we're trying to find out who he is. This Jesus, same one they crucified. God hath raised us, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear. For David is not ascended into the heavens, but he says unto himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand. That's where my Lord is right now. How long until I make thy foes thy footstool? Now, that's God's answer to man's rejection of Jesus Christ, isn't it? You killed it, God raised it. And where is he now? Praise God, he's at the right hand of God. And in view of what God Almighty has done about men crucifying his son, the Apostle Peter says, verse 36, Therefore let all the house of Israel know as a fact, it is a fact, Let all the house of Israel know assuredly, let them know this is a fact, it's settled, for hell can't change it, that God hath made that same Jesus, who when he was shepherd, and he offered himself to you, you killed him, you crucified him. What's God done about him? He's made him both Lord and Messiah. God's done that. That's God's answer. That's what God's done about this one we call Jesus. He's exalted him. He's sat him down at his right hand. And if you'll turn now and he's made him Lord, in the fifth chapter of the book of Acts, let's turn over two or three pages, verse 30, trying to find out where Christ is, who he really is. Who is he now? In verse 30, the Apostle Peter says, The God of our fathers raised up Jesus. Who is this other Jesus? He's the same one that you slew and hanged on trees. That's what men did with the Son of God when he offered himself for their acceptance or their rejection. And they rejected him and nailed him to a tree. And here again is God's answer. Him, the same Jesus that you slew and hanged on trees. God's done something about it. Him, God has exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sin. And then just one other scripture in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews, we read these blessed words, Wherefore, seeing we also accomplish the vow that so great a cloud of witnesses let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that set before us. Looking unto Jesus, who is he? He's the altar and finish of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despised and ashamed Meaning whatever happened to that fellow that endured the cross and despised the shame. Hallelujah. Where is he now? Where is he? And he is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. That's where he is. That's where he is. You acquainted with the one who was on the cross. Now he's on the throne. Have you been vitally united to him? There is the cross where sin's death for believers was saved and yonder on the throne where all the power to transform a man's life is. And there is no such thing as a man being transformed and made a new creation unless he gets in touch by faith with Christ where he is now. He's sitting on the throne. And you don't accept somebody sitting on the throne, honey. You bow to him. You surrender to him. You see, I haven't got brain enough to talk about it. But the Jesus this generation knows about is some little pitiful fellow that sure would like for you to accept him as your savior. But the Bible says it's the Jesus who was born of a virgin and lived in Nazareth and wound up on a tree and was buried in a bar of curry and his body was perfumed by barrage of perfume and his body was swaddled and borrowed clothes. The Bible says that he's not in that grave and that God's answer as to who Jesus is, this one, that the curse he spat upon and despised and rejected and nailed to a tree, God's answer to that is to sit him on the throne and tell him to sit there under the last of his enemies just to be made his footstool. That's the only Jesus here, Brother Wilson. If you don't know him, where he lives, sitting on the throne, the Jesus you're acquainted with is a product of your imagination. For the same Jesus who was born of a virgin is sitting on the throne now. And if the scriptures still teach that he that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son hath not life, then if you do not have joy as you're very old, if you're not married here in holy wedlock, if you're not joined to him like a branch to the vine, if you're not partially, partially one with him, he lives in you, and you live in him, and you never contacted him. The only place where there's any power to change lives, and that's the reason, ladies and gentlemen, the present company accepted, I hope, about 95 out of every 100 Baptists don't have changed lives. There ain't many ways to have your life changed except it's power from the hand of him who's sitting at the right hand of God. That's where all life is. That's where all power is. There ain't any power to change a man except in him. Oh, you can believe Jesus died for sinners and he died for you, you blew him to pieces, but salvation isn't believing something. Salvation is being joined to somebody. He's on the throne now because he was on the cross. Thank God. And the two or three things that have been settled now, youngsters, listen to me. One thing that's been settled is that he's your Lord. You don't make him Lord. God beats you to it. He's your Lord. See that? As your Lord, he bought you and he's got to do something with you. And there's just one or two things he can do with you. He can save you or he can damn you. He's going to do one of the other. I'm telling you, ladies and gentlemen, the most important thing you see is not what you're going to do with him, but what's he going to do with you. He's got you on his hands. I believe the picture is clear. Jesus bought this world on the cross. He owns you. He's your Lord. I don't mean he's your Savior. You see, had the Jews accepted Christ as Messiah and receiving him as their King, they'd have found their salvation. And if you want a Savior, you have to get in touch with him who's sitting on the throne now. For the one on the throne is one died on the cross. Amen? And if you receive him as Lord, in his Lordship, you'll find your salvation. Listen, God's already beat you to it. You don't decide whether Jesus is your Lord or not. God decided that. He's the Lord of all men. There's a difference between being a Christian and not being a Christian. The Christians tickle to death that Jesus Christ is Lord, and the unsaved man don't like it. He wants to have his own way. So you rejoice that Jesus Christ is yonder at the right hand of God sitting on the throne, and that all things have been turned over to him. John 3.35, the Lord Jesus said, The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things unto him. That's a pretty big order. The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things unto him. This other thing has been settled. Now listen carefully. God made his answer, and this is the most important thing in the Scripture. If God hadn't raised Jesus from the dead, a dead Jesus can't save him. But God did raise him from the dead, and that's the heart of the gospel. And he sat him down on the throne. And salvation is by faith, not in what he did, but in him who did what he did. You can blame the death of Jesus and go to hell, but if you put all your faith in the one who died, he's got life, brother. He's got power to transform your life, because he shed his blood on the cross. Let's get this straight. You don't have the privilege of deciding whether you receive Jesus Christ as Lord or not. Now let me repeat that. You don't have the privilege of deciding whether you receive Jesus as Lord or not. That's done been settled, brother. It's done been settled that every knee shall bow. Isn't it? It's already been settled that every tongue shall confess. What? That Jesus is Lord! That's what the Bible said all the time. Isn't that right? And it's said that you're going to confess that he's Lord. It's said that you're going to bow your knee to him as Lord. Now, that won't mean that you'll be saved, but I can't get into this altogether. We'll one other night talk on the glory of God. Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, not to your salvation. You wait till that long and God has to make you bow. He'll do it. And make you confess! He'll do it. For he works by persuasion. Now he's going to work the power of it. It'll be too late for your salvation, but that never was the biggest thing. The biggest thing in all this world and time and eternity is not your salvation, it's the glory of God. That's the God's truth. For God will share his glory with you and he'll send this whole world to hell. My glory I'll not give to another. And this whole world, what makes this whole thing click, this whole earth is created just to echo the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. One day every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus is what God declared to be when he raised him from the dead, brother. You're not any little pitiful fellow standing outside your heart's door, honey. He's sitting on the throne. You better sue for mercy. Isn't that right? You better sue for mercy. You better sue for mercy. He's Lord. Everybody's going to confess that, thank God. We can close up all the church buildings, burn all the Bibles, kill all the preachers. Just as many people will bow to King Jesus as would if we kept on preaching. The only reason we keep on preaching, God says, along with the candle of my grace, fire! Every old rebel that comes and drops a shotgun and falls at my feet and comes under my rule, I'll pardon him and make him one of my family. That's great. That's great. You see, it's already been settled. If you're going to bow to him, then settle. There was such a damnable lie as the fact that Jesus Christ is priest and men are asked to accept him or reject him. No, sir, it's not a question of your receiving him. It's just a question of when. Reject him now, men do. They say, I won't let him reign over me. Oh, they'll take him as the Savior and go in the church and get duped and go on. No man will call him Lord except with the Holy Spirit. No man will come under the rule of Jesus Christ and live a transformed life except if he bows to the rule of Christ, see. You can reject him as most people do. Now, if you can't get by with it, he'll drag you out of hell if he has to. Every knee shall bow. Every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. To the glory of the Father. Did you know, my friends, that in the New Testament, the word Savior occurs exactly 24 times in all of the Hemingway books, 26 books in it in the New Testament, something like that. And eight of those times of the 24 refer to God. But the word Lord occurs 522 times in the New Testament. And the word Lord Jesus occurs 30 times. And the words Lord Jesus Christ occur 81 times, just 24 times. He's called Savior eight of them, referring to the Father. And in the New Testament, 520 times he's called Lord. He's called Lord Jesus 30 times. He's called Lord Jesus Christ 81 times. In the little book of Acts, our Lord Jesus Christ is called Savior only two times. But he's called Lord in the book of Acts, Savior twice, and Lord 92 times. And in the book of Acts, he's called Lord 13 times. In the book of Acts, he's called the Lord Jesus Christ six times. Evidently the Holy Spirit wants us to keep in mind where Jesus is right now, brother. He's not in the hands of men getting crucified, brother. He's sitting on the throne. He's sitting on the throne. I want to speak to you now just briefly on three things about preaching where Jesus is. Who is he? Well, bless God, he's the exalted son of the living God sitting on the throne. Who is he? He's the prime minister of almighty God who's been made Lord of all men. And it's been settled in the heavens before the wind of time comes, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord. You can't win, brother. Bow to him now and receive salvation. Look him now and receive damnation, be dragged out of hell. You can't beat the game. You ever see that? Salvation by grace gets awfully sweet. We try it the same, don't get mad at me. We made a mess of it. I never heard it sung well and you never did either, amazing grace. Because it's ten thousand times more amazing than we've ever dreamed. God don't have to save you. He can just let you go on in your rebellious way and drag you out of hell and make you do the one thing that's important. Bow down to his son. That's the one big thing. But in marvelous mercy and grace, I don't know how to spell the word grace, much less know what it means. In marvelous mercy and grace. God proposes for all who believe to take them into his family and by his wooing and by his persuasion to bring them to himself. How wonderful grace is. The debt's due. The note's past due. The bank's going to foreclose. We're condemned already. God can leave us alone. And after we should bow, we'll never confess. And marvelous that God acts in grace and holds back death and keeps the door open and stands all day long with hands outstretched and says, Be tender bound, men and women. Why will you die? What grace and what condescension. The early church preached that Jesus was on throne. They said the same Jesus who died on the cross. They said he's up there as administrator of God's business. They said everything's in his hands. They said Jesus is Lord. Bow down to him. Oh, good news. That's the good news. The one thing that must be purchased with the precious blood of the Son of God, that church must not only preach, but it must demonstrate the Lordship of Christ. That's where we're dying, brothers and sisters. God's separate side, church's present, cut and accepted to a whole are full of people that claim and assert and don't know a thing on God's earth about his rules in their daily lives. And there's no salvation apart from being translated from the kingdom, the rule of darkness, into the kingdom. And the word kingdom means rule. Into the rule of God's dear Son. What I'm saying to you is, God saves you by establishing the Lordship of Christ in your life. That's how he saves you. Oh, my soul. Sabbath desecration, money robbing, hell-raising, church numbers, God. Edwards wouldn't know Jesus Christ if he met him in the road. Don't know a thing over there about a living thief into Christ who was on the cross, but now he's on the throne. And you have to get in touch with him to have power in your life. I was a church member many years before I was saved. You know how I found out I wasn't a Christian? I didn't have a supernatural power in me. You haven't got to if you're not saved either. Brother, if you claim to be a Christian, Jesus Christ hasn't touched you. You don't have access to a power bigger than you. You miss Christ. Jesus Christ doesn't ask you to live a transformed life without giving you access to the power of the transformed. That power is in Christ, and Christ's on the throne. If you don't get in touch with him, you'll have to bow to him and sue for mercy. You don't make a bargain with somebody sitting on the throne. You say, I'm the subject, you're the boss. You dictate it. Hallelujah. Amen. Amen. Yes, sir. Ah, the preaching of the Lordship of Christ will strike at the heart of man's fallen condition. You know, sin is exceeding the sinful in the face of the fact that God Almighty created this world just for one purpose, that everything shall echo the Lordship of Jesus Christ. You know, for everything wound up, according to the scripture, every wicked thing is going to bring glory to God. Everything is going to redound to the glory of God. You know, sin, man's disposition is uncovered. When I say to you, you're going to book me, you don't have a right to do your own thinking or your own acting or anything else. You've been bought with a price and not your own. And God Almighty has decreed that just one person that has throne rights to your life, and that's not you, that's Jesus Christ. I tell you, brother, I'll make you book up if you're not willing for him to control you. Huh? I want to ask you a question. Do you folks here believe that there's anything such as being a Christian unless you've got a new master? Huh? That new master to the Lord Jesus Christ. Huh? God will help you. I'll tell you right now, if you can preach in the Savior and leave off the fact that he's Lord, nobody wants to go to hell. Anybody will take Jesus as Savior, but he's not offered as your Savior. He's offered as the Lord who saves. If you preach any Christ except the one that's on the throne, you ain't preaching the Christ with the Bible. That's exactly where he is. And on the throne, he saves or he damns. Isn't that right? That's the God's truth. You can't have him to save you from hell unless you have him to rule in your daily life. That's who he is. You know, when the Jews over here had found out what it meant to bow to him, they tried to kill him. The scribes and Pharisees said, if we don't get rid of him, he's going to get rid of us. When a man sees that this awful rebellion is in his heart, he'll either repent or rebel. He'll justify himself or he'll cry for mercy. When a man sees clearly the claims of the Lordship of Christ, he no longer claims to have peace with God, just to keep you on your toes every day of your life, brother. He sees self as an enemy. He sees the seeds of murder uncovered in him. He sees what a rebel he is. He'll bow and sue for mercy or he'll curse God. The preaching of the Lordship of Christ will get results. Sometimes you'll see depression and cloudiness on this generation. Church members don't think I'm crazy, but I've offered a $500 reward for any place in the Scripture where Jesus is offered as a personal Savior. He is not offered as a personal Savior. He offers himself. Salvation of Christ. Christ is salvation. He doesn't give you something. He gives himself. You need more than a Savior from sin. He's the Lord. He's the Lord. You can't have part of him, but have all of him. He's the Lord and Savior. Some people say, well, I don't know anything about what you're talking about. You'd better find out. Sometimes I see expressions of anger and hatred. It's all very well to take him as your Savior and you run your life. He'll come along and say he's not offered as Savior. He's presented as the exalted one who was on the cross. And as the one who's sitting on the throne, he's got you in his hands. He can save you, damn you. Which will it be? Salvation's in him, my brother. Not just part of him. People say, I don't like that. I don't like that. Sometimes I see tears of repentance. People say, I've been running my life and I've got no right to. This is his world. He bought it with his blood. God's given him the throne rights to the hearts of every man. I now repent with a bit of tears. Lord, I'm coming home. Preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, Lordship of Christ, involves the message of repentance. If Jesus has been declared Lord, and I've been acting like a high Lord, somebody's got to change their mind. You know what repentance really is? It's agreeing with God. God says this is the son of my Lord, in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him. Repentance is to agree with God. God says I've made him both Lord and Messiah. Repentance says I've been trying to be Lord of my life. So now you be the Lord. That's agreeing with God. That's putting the cards on the table. That's agreeing with God. That's accepting God's counsel. That's taking God as his Word. That's ceasing to disagree with God. He's Lord. Who said it? God said it. A fellow named Saul of Tarsus was going down the road to Damascus one day. He thought he had run and everything, and suddenly a light shines. He says, above the brightness of the noonday sun, he heard a voice and saw somebody, and he found out who that was. He found out that fellow Jesus, he'd gone up and down the country saying he was a black son, but he was the Son of God. When he found out who he was, who is he? You know what he did? Here's where your decision comes in. But I hope if you never have found out who Jesus is, you do. And I think when you do, you'll do one or two things. You'll curse him, or you'll bow down. You'll say with Saul of Tarsus, Lord, what wilt thou have me do? That settles it. If Jesus is sitting on the throne, I won't bow my knees to him worshiping me. If God's turned everything over to him, I want to recognize him, and I want to willingly give him the throne rights to my life. I think that's what repentance is. You know, I close with this. Salvation starts with a dim glimpse of who Jesus is. In John chapter 6, verse 40, my Lord says, This is the will of the Father who sent me, that he that seeth the Son, and believeth on him, has everlasting life, and I'll raise him up to last day. You can't be saved apart from finding out who Jesus really is. You know that? Have to find out. We still believe that the Holy Spirit makes Christ real to men and women who are seekers and hearers of his word, and makes the Lord Jesus Christ leap up from the pages of this book and men and women actually face him and see him, not with these eyes, but with eyes of faith. And then the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 18, says that Christian life is a looking at the glory of Christ, feasting on him, looking at him. And then the third chapter, 1 John, says, We'll be plumb saved one of these days when we shall be like him. What will make us like him? We shall see him as he really is. Ah! When we really see who he is, I think, and it'll be so wonderful. We can't see him with these weak eyes of faith but in all of his glory, I guess, he'll kill us. One day we will. And that look will transform us and we'll be just like him. So about all this, then, is being a Christian and seeing Jesus. See who he is with a dim view but enough to fall at his feet. Walk our pilgrim journey. We all, Paul says, beholding as an open glass the glory of Christ. What happens to us? We're changed into the same image from glory to glory. One day when he shall appear, we shall be like him. For we shall see him. God bless you. Let us stand.
What the Early Church Preached
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Rolfe P. Barnard (1904 - 1969). American Southern Baptist evangelist and Calvinist preacher born in Guntersville, Alabama. Raised in a Christian home, he rebelled, embracing atheism at 15 while at the University of Texas, leading an atheists’ club mocking the Bible. Converted in 1928 after teaching in Borger, Texas, where a church pressured him to preach, he surrendered to ministry. From the 1930s to 1960s, he traveled across the U.S. and Canada, preaching sovereign grace and repentance, often sparking revivals or controversy. Barnard delivered thousands of sermons, many at Thirteenth Street Baptist Church in Ashland, Kentucky, emphasizing God’s holiness and human depravity. He authored no major books but recorded hundreds of messages, preserved by Chapel Library. Married with at least one daughter, he lived modestly, focusing on itinerant evangelism. His bold style, rejecting “easy-believism,” influenced figures like Bruce Gerencser and shaped 20th-century Reformed Baptist thought.