Conversion of Rolfe Barnard

I'd like to take the time this evening, friends, to read a section from my biography on Ralph Barnard called God's Hitchhike Evangelist. I think it's important when we study the lives of men and women that God has used in former times to bring them glory, we can learn much. Barnard had a powerful preaching ministry that lasted over 40 years and canvassed much of America.

It was said of his ministry that he led over 100,000 souls to Christ. Barnard was a unique individual, and he started off in college by being a college atheist at a Baptist college, no doubt. He started an infidel club and led many to hell, he claimed.

And I want to start you off by getting to know this man, Ralph Barnard, by reading you his conversion experience. Here now are his words. I organized an infidel club in my college.

I had 300 young Baptist college students to join, but by night I would pray to God to save me. I was an orator in those days, a college debater, a college Shakespearean actor. I was a big shot in those days.

I was the most prominent man on the campus when I organized my infidel club. I led a lot of people to hell. I have you to understand that.

I had a scholarship in the best law school in the world. I have you to understand that. I had the offer already of a junior partnership in the biggest law firm in Texas when I was out of school.

You wouldn't catch me preaching, being a little old hitchhike preacher living on cornbread and water, and everybody cursing me and talking about me. Now, there was never a day in my life that I didn't want to keep out of hell, but I wasn't going to preach. I was cursing God by day and begging God to save me by night, but I ain't going to preach.

For five years I tried to get God to save me, and every time I said, I will not preach. Listen, I don't care how little it is. If that's where your rebellion heads up, it must be crushed.

If not there, there's no salvation. I know what it is to pray and cry, seek and everything else. This easy belief stuff to get somebody to cry a little bit and make some kind of a profession and call it salvation is deception.

You must be willing to surrender your all to the Lord Jesus Christ and do His will. Christ must be revealed to you. That is salvation.

I stand here tonight because God set His affections on me, and He sent a college professor after me, and that college professor wouldn't let me go to hell. He loved me, and he wouldn't leave me alone. Somebody wouldn't let me go to hell.

That college professor, he prayed for me and wept over me. I don't know why God laid me on that old professor's heart. I thank God He did.

That professor couldn't save me, but he could weep over me and ask God to save me. He couldn't break me, but he could ask God to break my stubborn will. He would wait for me at night on campus, and with tears in his eyes, he would say, Rolf, I can't let you go to hell.

I knew for five long years that salvation for me meant I had to be a public preacher, and I believe it is meant for you to do whatever the will of God is for you. For me, it was this. I knew that surrender to King Jesus meant I would have to be a preacher, and that was the one thing I was not going to do.

So I did what it seems that most professing Christians have been able to do. I couldn't get the job done, though. I tried to get God to save me without throwing down my rebellion, but that just won't work.

You can't do it and call yourself a Christian. If you do, you're certain to go to hell until your rebellion is crushed and you surrender to do His will. There is no salvation.

Well, I graduated from that school and went out to the panhandle of Texas to teach school. I was going to work a year before I went on to law school and pay a few of my debts. I got out there, of course, and I was a good Baptist all that time.

I passed for a good church member so they didn't turn me out. Anybody that wants to can be a church member now. It's the easiest thing on earth to get in and just about impossible to get out.

That's the church now. Well, I was a church member and also president of an infidel club in that school, but I went out to teach school, and in those days you had to be a church member if you got a job teaching in the public schools. So the first Sunday, I marched down the aisle and joined the church there by letter.

Of course, I didn't go back that Sunday night. No use being a fool about this religion business. And I didn't go Wednesday night when they had a business meeting and elected me to be teacher of the men's Bible class.

That's right, and there I was. I suppose they didn't know anything about me, and I could put on a good show, you know. And I knew more Bible when I was a kid than those men did, and so we just had a storm.

If I didn't go through hell, I'd choose up and take sides. I taught that Bible class, and then the preacher resigned, and we went two or three Sundays with no preaching. Then one Sunday, I went to my boarding house from Sunday school, and I never did know why, but I went to my room and locked it.

I could have gotten out, but I didn't want anybody to come in and bother me. I threw my Bible down on the floor, and I buried my face in it and said, Lord, whether you save me or damn me, I will preach from now on. Well, that same afternoon, I wanted to share what I'd done with the superintendent of the church's Sunday school, so I walked over to his home and found him on the front porch asleep in a rocking chair while he waited for dinner.

I walked right up to him and awakened him. I said, Brother Mills, I've come to tell you the Lord has saved me, and I want to preach next Sunday. The superintendent said, Well, it's about time.

I said, What do you mean? He said, Things have been going on. A couple of letters came to Panhandle, Texas post office. One of them was addressed to the superintendent of the Sunday school of the First Baptist Church.

The other was addressed to the pastor. Didn't know any names. They were identical letters.

Some old white-haired woman from Abilene, Texas said, My boy is coming to your town to teach school. He's called to be a preacher. He's not even saved.

He's in an awful mess. Don't let him have a moment's peace. And he said, Boy, we've been doing it.

We knew you weren't saved, but we elected you to teach a men's Bible class. We've been meeting once a week and asking, Lord, make the fire a little hotter. We've been waiting.

When I got saved, I mailed two letters, one to my mother and one to the head of the English department at my old college, who was the human instrument of keeping this infidel out of hell. And the head of the Department of English told the president. And within an hour, the superintendent of the school where I was teaching got a telephone call from the president of the school where I'd been and had been the president of this infidel's club in that Baptist school.

And pretty soon, I was called into the office of the superintendent, and he said, The president of your alma mater has been on the phone, and he's asked that I grant you a week's leave. They'll take care of your expenses and your salary. He wants me to release you to come back to school and speak in chapel every night.

And about that time, the telephone rang again, and it was the president he asked for me. And after the hellos, he said, Ralph, news has come our way that the Lord has saved you. I said, I believe he has, Prixie.

We called him Prixie, a term of endearment. He said, Well, I've asked your superintendent. He said it's all right with him for you to leave, and I want your word.

And I demand that you come next week and speak to us. We'll turn the chapel over to you, and we'll meet every night. I want you to come talk to us.

I want you to undo much of the hell that you caused here as much as you can. Well, that's a pretty hard job to do, isn't it? And I went back. They still had an infidel's club.

The young man who had been the vice president of it the year before when I started it, he was now the president. He and I were almost blood brothers. He heard me speak in chapel.

He had to. He heard me every night. I stood up there in that chapel every night and gave what we call our testimonies, what I believed the Lord had done for me.

I don't know doctrine or nothing but that. But they listened, and I was facing not all of the youngsters who'd been in my infidel club. Some of them the year before had been seniors, and they'd gone on to spread their poison out yonder.

But there was still a lot of them, and that year the infidel club was bigger than the year I was there. And I stood up there, and I tried to wash stripes. That's in the Bible, isn't it? And when the last service was over, my buddy, now president of the club, asked me, Ralph, I want the privilege of taking you to the train.

And we left early and went down to the train station and got the ticket arranged and sat in his car. And he said, Ralph, you've gone off your rocker. You used to be a brain.

I hope you'll recover and come back to your senses and get rid of all this stuff. I played with him all that week, Monday through Friday. I preached to him.

I witnessed to him. And I got nowhere and was shook hands, and I got on the train. And five months later, a man put five bullets in his chest.

And I have a terrible reason to believe that five seconds later in hell, he lifted up his eyes, being in torments. Two young men organized an infidel's club. That was 39 years ago since I shook hands and told that boy goodbye.

I'm here speaking to you. I'm afraid he's been in torments these 39 years. What's the difference somewhere in there in the good providence of God? I began to spend time in a cold room crying to the Lord for mercy.

And that boy never did. And he fell. And he is still in the same condition he was in when he fell.

And I believe God changed me. And I shall never forget when I was ordained. I remember my dear friend, who's been in glory now many years, preached the ordination sermon.

I was just a young fellow and, of course, knew everything, therefore nothing. I was full of vim, vigor, and vitality. And I thought that if they would just turn me loose on this old world about a year, I would have the whole outfit converted.

And there I was. I remember that preacher standing up there. And among the things he said were, Son, you don't know what you're getting into.

You are yet able to believe. But there will be nights when you walk the floor. Your wife can't comfort you.

Your loved ones can't comfort you. The heavens will be dark. And you will want to die.

You will never know what heartaches you are letting yourself in for. You don't realize the opposition of Satan or the absolute depravity of men, even good men. I want to remind you of one thing.

Rolf, always be as narrow as the Bible. Don't be any broader than the Bible. And preach the Word.