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Witnessing a Good Confession
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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The video is a compilation of three sermons preached by Brother Ralph Barnard at the Galvest Baptist Church near Gonzales, Louisiana. The sermons were delivered on January 19th and 20th. Unfortunately, Brother Barnard suffered a fatal heart attack on Tuesday morning. The last sermon, titled "Witnessing a Good Confession," emphasizes the importance of confessing one's faith in God and the power of God to overcome evil spirits.
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At the request of many of his wonderful friends, we're preparing this tape of the last three messages by Brother Ralph Barnard. These messages were preached at the Galvest Baptist Church near Gonzales, Louisiana, on Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Monday morning. And then, of course, Monday night, just before the service, Brother Barnard had a heart attack and was taken to the hospital, and then on Tuesday morning had another, which was a fatal heart attack. These messages were preached on January the 19th and January the 20th, and we're going to have them just like they were preached. No changes made at all. These tapes were made while he was preaching. We're just transferring them to this tape. We hope that you'll enjoy these messages. We'll have one of them in just a moment. And now, here is the last message of Brother Ralph Barnard, and the title was Witnessing a Good Confession. I want to give this a singing for these morning service hymns that only people can sing. He departed, Jews and Greeks turned out, faces of worshipers came on, and here it is, while they were getting out to work, God brought special miracles by the hand of Paul. Who did that? God did. God did. They did the preaching. They did the witnessing. God did the confirming. We talk about, oh, I wish we'd have revival. What would revival be? Come on the sea, God Almighty will take that truth in Peter's heart. That would be revival. Isn't that right? Is that what we want? I don't know whether we could taste it, and you do not. He did it by the hand. Noah did this. God brought special miracles, but he brought them by the hand of Paul. God helped us with joy. Here's me to say, I'm happy for something happened that got us back. And if you think that the name of Zion, maybe some of us have seen the Lord, and we begin to cry. We're brought under the sick, handkerchiefs and aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them. Now, it's a pretty good, I don't know, picture of the situation. You and I in, turn on the radio, and the devils will go. People send in their dogs. We make fun of that, don't we? It's for us to get everything already. I want you to show, and who I am, is yours. You're a servant. Zion delivered you. You're the creator. You're not getting anywhere. Lord, you're a preacher. That's my child. He's mine. It's worth. We've been trying to do it, Lord. And he said to the Lord, something's in for you. You can get that. The only way you can get him to listen to you, is to put something. You know what it does?
Witnessing a Good Confession
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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.