In the month of July in 1950, on
a Sunday evening, I began a series of
meetings with Brother E.
W.
Johnson down in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
I brought a message that night and ten
years later I was through Pine Bluff and
Brother Johnson told me that that message split
his church wide open.
Just one message.
He said the people went out of the
service that evening about evenly divided.
They didn't have a vote.
They didn't come to a vote for eight
years.
But he said his church was already split,
of course, but that one message was the
meat axe and it took eight years under
his quiet way for it to come to
its climax and then the people demanded the
right to vote on it.
He said the first time they extended him
a call, they needed a new building and
he had led a congregation to build a
nice place somewhere else and so they called
him because they wanted him to build a
new building.
Ten years later they voted whether they wanted
support and say amen to and help propagate
what he had to preach.
And he said that the thing came to
a climax in just one service.
I remember asking him, I said, Brother Johnson,
was I in the flesh?
I get that way a lot of times.
Was I wrong?
He said, no, I believe one time you
were in the spirit.
But he said the people went away believing
in two different gods.
Half of them believed in a god whose
god we preachers call it a sovereign god.
That simply means very god.
And the others went away with the god
of 20th century and 19th century Christianity.
A god who would like to do well,
but is unable to do so.
Well, that's pretty well the message tonight.
In 1954, while I was listening to Brother
Farrell Griswold over in the Pollard Baptist building
at a Bible conference, I think it was
the first one, I scribbled down on an
envelope six issues that seemed to be worth
facing and seemed to carry within them what
all of this controversy is about.
And tonight, I don't guess I'm letting the
cat out of the bag.
The only time I have got an invitation
in my life to come hold a meeting
and the preacher dictated my sermons is this
one.
And I'm glad to come.
How many folks were in the Park meeting
in 1952?
How many of you were in the Park
meeting?
Well, thank you.
Well, he's asked me to bring some of
the messages, but he wanted me to bring
this one.
And those of you who remember it, I
dead sure don't.
I haven't touched this since 1954.
But when he wrote me the letter and
outlined my sermons, I began to dig.
And I came up on that old envelope.
I still had it.
And here goes.
Now, of course, no man ever repeated sermons.
No man ever preached from the same text
the same way.
The scripture's too big for that.
But I appreciate this privilege and the confidence
and the honor that their pastors paid me
as life coming home.
And I want to just talk tonight, this
prayer meeting night, on six issues that still
face us and will have to take sides
as individuals, as congregations, as public preachers.
Anybody names the name of Jesus Christ living
in this day, you've been living in a
day when these six issues have about wrapped
up the controversy in what Christianity's all about
in your day and mine.
And I remember I got these points.
I don't know what's said about them.
I know if I don't remember them, you
dead sure don't.
But this prayer meeting night, I want to
leave them out.
I appreciate the all-out effort your pastor
and I trust you are going to make
for these days.
We are facing the most tremendous opportunity I've
ever seen.
I bring you good tidings of great joy.
Hell's just a-popping everywhere.
Doors are opening.
Preachers are seeking the truth of God's grace
as I've never seen it.
And I rejoice, and especially with you people
who've been in the battle and have stood
by me and made my little ministry possible.
There are six basic issues that I bring
you again tonight that we have to take
sides upon.
And these issues will determine our gospel.
And the other day, I heard a godly
man, Brother James Stewart, down in Houston, Texas,
speaking to about 60 Baptist pastors.
And he said that he longed in his
heart that true evangelism would make its
appearance once again in America.
He said the evangelism that depends upon the
sovereign Holy Spirit to bring men to Christ.
And there such prayer meeting as you wouldn't
think would be possible today is that dear
man who has long lifted up his voice
against the shallowness of what we've called evangelism
in America.
And those preachers got on their faces and
sobbed out their sins and their confessions to
God.
They were all Southern Baptists, but they didn't
fight the man's message.
Fifteen years ago they would have.
But they are coming up to the lick
log now, and the message and message that
looked like was getting such wonderful results, they
are not getting the results now.
And this generation of people in our churches
and in our pulpits is open now to
hear from God like I've never seen.
And I rejoice.
For if I had a text tonight, I
would take that text in John chapter 3
verse 8, which reads like this.
The wind bloweth where it will, and thou
hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell
whence it cometh, and whither it goeth.
So is everyone, everyone
that is born of the Spirit.
When the last words been said, evangelism that
can get people saved without the blowing of
the Spirit who blows when he wills and
nobody can explain it, or the evangelism that
is absolutely helpless unless the wind bloweth.
That pretty well sums up the whole shoot.
I was reading of one of the old
Puritans the other day.
God shut him up in a little old
village about 200 people for about 37 years.
He wrote great books.
He preached for 33 years and never had
a convert.
And then the wind began to blow.
I felt sorry for the brother when it'd
been wonderful if he'd have lived in our
day when we can get people converted without
the Holy Ghost.
But he couldn't.
The poor old man didn't know that there's
any way on earth for men to be
born into the kingdom of God except as
the Holy Wind opened their hearts and applied
the truth.
And all he knew to do was just
keep on plowing and breathing a prayer.
Oh, thou sovereign Spirit, we cannot command you,
but we can't for thy presence and we
long for your blessing.
The six issues that I bring again tonight
are first.
We have to take sides, not in our
heads but in our hearts, over this proposition
that man was utterly ruined in the Garden
of Eden or that he was somewhat injured.
Those of you who've heard me preach a
great deal know that whether it's being backslidden
or not, I try and as I grow
older to shy away from man's terminology.
I do not know whether this will strike
you right or not, but I've quit using
the adjectives on what they call the five
points.
I no longer use the term total depravity
because it takes three hours and a half
to explain what we do not mean by
the word total.
But that does not mean that I do
not take sides.
And this is the starting point, that we
deal with men and women who hadn't been
injured, they were ruined.
When in the loins of Adam they willfully
reached out and sought to put God off
the throne and sit there themselves.
And the penalty was death, not injury but
death.
And that's where the whole thing starts.
I remember 1950 in July, after I'd been
here in April I think it was, I
came to the parting away with a brother
and I'd had much fellowship in the ministry.
He took the position by way of rebuking
me that man was somewhat injured in the
fall.
Of course he has to take that position
in order to preach what he believes is
so, that God has done his part toward
the salvation of men.
Now it's up to men.
If man has some ability, alright.
If he has no ability, alright.
But I've learned long since that what we
call the doctrines of election and predestination and
those terms, that isn't what offends people.
What offends people is to rob them of
that thing they've been using to get multitudes
of people thinking they're saved.
That appealing to the big wills of men
and women who have nothing but perverted wills.
I heard a radio preacher who used to
believe the gospel and try to preach it,
but the pressure of the hours got him.
I heard him in Winston-Salem the other
day preach for 15 minutes to prove beyond
a shadow of a doubt that God's done
everything he can do.
Now it's up to the sinner.
Now the so-called gospel upon which modern
-day churches in America was built has been
built on a gospel that teaches that men
got a pretty bad blow, but they weren't
ruined, and that therefore salvation is God taking
the first step and men taking the rest.
We have to make up our minds there.
When I brought this message in 1954, we
hadn't heard about the fact that the first
11 chapters of Genesis ain't so.
Of course we had to find that out
in your day and mine.
But if it ain't so, then there's no
salvation.
For if we were not ruined in Adam,
Christ can't do a thing on God's earth
for us if it did die.
And so to further notice, we'll still take
the position and stay with it and fight
for it if we must, that we belong
to a race that was utterly ruined.
Not in need of a shove, but oh
God, in need of a savior.
Utterly lost and utterly ruined and utterly unable
to lift ourselves by our own bootstraps.
We'll stay by that.
I watched this thing grow.
1950, as far as this section, east of
the Mississippi River, what happened?
The Apollo Baptist Church had ramifications all over
the South.
Out of it came your blessed young preacher.
I've watched them as they stumble.
I've prayed for them when I thought this
was going wrong, rejoiced when God was blessing.
It's been a struggle.
And we're not out of the woods yet.
But anybody, anybody that's had a better time
than I have, I couldn't imagine it.
I've seen it as it's just started, and
now it's breaking out all over the world.
And I'm almost persuaded I may live to
see the time when the gospel will be
returned to the churches of America.
Wouldn't that be wonderful?
The second issue that we have to take
sides on is simply this, that salvation is
utterly of the Lord or only partially.
Utterly of the Lord or only partially.
I remember your young pastor many years ago
went down to Panama City to hold a
meeting.
Had a little trouble with the pastor.
I forget all the details.
In the connection with prayer, Brother Mahan told
me that he said to the young preacher,
let's pray to sinners.
According to your theology we ought not to
bother God.
If salvation's up to man, we needn't bother
God.
We just get out on our knees and
say, Bill, save yourself.
Susie, save yourself.
This has been a battleground.
Men have taken it and become what we
call hardshells.
There's always that danger.
There is a sin between truth and error.
And there's nothing so dangerous as something that's
got a lot of truth in it and
a lot of error.
But the battleground is still being fought.
And with all of the conflict and all
of the mistakes and all the boneheaded mean
things we've done, it's still been a pleasure
to insist in spite of everything that salvation
is God's work first, last, and all the
time.
And that no man, if he lived a
billion years, would ever have whereof the glory,
save in the cross of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Salvation is either altogether of the Lord, or
it's just part of the Lord and part
of man.
Now the popular gospel is still that salvation,
God had something to do with it, and
man cast a deciding vote, but not so.
Not so.
Wouldn't it be wonderful?
This is worth praying for.
This is what we're sweating for.
This is what we're groaning for.
This is what none of us know the
meaning of the word, sacrificing if we knew
how to do it for.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if the gospel be
returned to our churches and a sinner couldn't
run from one church and have his wounds
healed slightly somewhere else by preaching this damnable
doctrine, that God's done part of it, and
now he's hoping that man will do the
rest.
No, that takes sides.
Salvation is either all of the Lord, or
it's just part of him.
And that's an issue.
I don't want to stay here till midnight,
so I'll just mention these tonight.
167 times in the New Testament, the word
K-A-L-E-O, or its equivalent,
it means call.
167 times in the New Testament.
I've been going up and down the line
a while, subject to pastors.
You're looking at a miracle.
I'm in the name of heaven.
I've stayed in the ministry.
Beats me.
And I've tried to preach that men are
saved when God calls them and they're able
to hear it.
I've tried to preach that to a church
world that is still absolutely ignoring the fact
that salvation, 167 times in the New Testament,
is at the end of God's call.
How on earth we could have built all
our mission program and our big churches and
all our denomination and leave out the fact
that men are dead in their spiritual graves
and there's only one voice that's got authority
to speak and give dead men life.
But the whole outfit is built on it.
God didn't put one word in the New
Testament 167 times to be written off.
Men are still saved virtually by hearing in
the gospel as the Holy Ghost makes it
effective.
A voice that has in it authority to
give life to dead men.
That's the only way anybody ever did get
saved.
The other day down in Houston a young
lady broke up the service and she came
running down the front and said I heard
it.
Why sure she heard it.
She heard it through my voice.
She heard His voice.
And Christ was made alive by the Holy
Ghost and she heard Him speak.
Not with these ears but with an ear
of faith just as plainly as He said
Lazarus come forth.
That girl heard it.
That's the way people say it.
Salvation is God saving dead men and He
saves men by the Word as He does
everything else and men hear and are saved.
The third issue that we face is that
salvation is a gift not an offer.
The old Puritans used to use the expression
Christ is freely offered in the gospel which
is so.
But it's meaningless.
It's the same proposition as the scripture whosoever
will may come.
The scripture does not say that.
But it is so that whosoever will may
come.
But that's meaningless because nobody will.
Nobody will.
Somebody says well I believe whosoever will may
come.
I do too.
But nobody will.
So why fuss about it.
Why fuss about it.
They tell me well I believe Christ is
freely offered in the gospel.
I do too.
But nobody is interested.
So why fuss about it.
But oh it's a little deeper than that.
Salvation is not an offer for men to
decide what they will do about.
Salvation is a gift.
And you better listen to me.
You don't turn down a gift because nobody
ever offers a gift to anybody until their
debt is sure to be appreciated.
You better get that.
That's right.
This is back on this same issue.
Sure.
My Lord Jesus was dealing with a woman
of Samaritan and he said unto her if
thou knewest the what?
The gift of God.
That brings us back to the same thing.
The heart has to be prepared or the
gift will not be offered.
My Lord he didn't put himself up for
barter.
The most damnable thing that's perverted the gospel
of Christ all the days of our years
has been this stuff about you dear people
you make up your mind what you will
do with Christ.
It's not given you to make that disposition
of Christ.
You're commanded to repent toward God.
You're commanded to believe the gospel but you're
never given a choice.
You're just faced with a duty.
Isn't that right?
Listen to me.
I've had a little burden in my heart
for my heart for yours and people that
go to all over America.
If there's anybody on God's top side of
God's earth that ought to have tender hearts
ought to be able to weep in here.
It's men and women who received the gift.
You've received the gift.
If God Almighty would give you Christ surely
no sinner on God's earth could be as
bad as you.
I wish I could wrap up everybody in
America that's lost joy.
That still isn't an amazement for the unspeakable
gift.
He gives it to prepared hearts, to prepared
hearts, to prepared hearts.
Will the load of guilt, burden clear up
to the hill?
But he touched me.
Oh, he touched me.
And oh, the joy that filled my soul.
He touched me and made me whole.
Salvation is an offer to be considered.
Salvation is God's gift.
Thanks be unto God, would the apostle Paul
say, for the unspeakable gift.
A Bible scholar told me that that Greek
word was never, if translated, thanks be unto
God for his own praise.
You just can't figure it out.
It just, thanks be unto God.
Not that he fixed it so we could
consider the matter and use our little brains
and our will, but in it all, conquering
grace, he gives eternal life to men and
women.
Salvation is a gift.
It's not an offer.
And then of course the fourth issue is
that salvation comes by revelation, not by decision.
Boy, we've had some scripture.
Mr. Spurgeon used to say, surely you must
decide for Jesus Christ, but for a revealed
Christ.
A revealed Christ.
A young preacher in Winston-Salem came to
see me last fall, the time I was
home.
He and his wife liked to come over
and talk with me.
He said, Brother Monash, I wish I could
have you in my church.
First time you told my crowd that unless
God worked a miracle in their lives, they're
going to split hill wide open.
He said, that would scare my people to
death.
I said, isn't that so?
He said, yeah.
But he said, my people never heard it.
Of course, I knew what he preached.
He preached that a man gets saved when
he decides to believe on Jesus.
And a man's a fool to trust a
hole in the wall.
Oh, yes, salvation comes not by offering and
making up his mind, but by the work
of the spirit of God making Jesus Christ,
who's alive, real to him.
So that if everybody in the world got
shot before sunrise and you was the only
one left, somebody asked you if Christ is
alive, you'd say, yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
I met him.
I walk with him.
He's real to me.
Salvation comes by God working a miracle.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if in our day,
I didn't have to jump out of my
skin, if the gospel that preaches that faith
is Christ made real inside would be returned
to America.
I claim to be a Christian.
I believe God saved me.
I've got five brothers and sisters still living.
They're all prominent church workers.
Only one of them would be comfortable if
he talked about Christ.
They're Sunday school teachers and deacons and this,
that, and the other.
They don't know a thing on God's earth
about a living God.
I never get to see them.
They are prophets of this generation.
They've made their decisions and they're doing their
best to keep out of jail and get
to heaven when they die.
And I long for them to be shot
up in their Sunday schools and in their
pulpits and over the radio.
They'll never be shot up to the fact
that you can't get saved without getting in
touch by faith with a living Lord who
died.
Salvation comes by revelation and not by decision.
The fifth issue that we still face, and
put in words like this, salvation is made
effective in a man's life by God bringing
a man to repentance and faith, or if
men themselves will repent and believe.
Somebody says, well, I believe that God save
anybody if a man repents toward God and
believe in Jesus Christ.
So do I.
But ain't nobody going to do it, so
why fuss about it?
If that's all there is to it, the
whole outfit will go to hell.
But thank God the scriptures teach much more
than that.
They teach that God Almighty has set a
man, the man Christ Jesus, with the print
of the nails in his hands and the
print of the crown of thorns on his
head.
And he's sitting on a throne.
He's put him there and given him one
task, among others, to grant repentance and forgiveness
of sin.
Oh, bless God.
That's a white horse of a different color.
I shut men up the best I know
how all over the country.
And I say, sinner, why don't you repent?
The best way for you to find out
is you can't start trying.
Just start trying to abhor yourself.
You can quit chewing tobacco or cussing out
the mule, but you can't do a great
deal about what's inside.
Go on, sinner, believe these preachers and make
up your mind what you're going to do,
and you'll find out it won't work.
It won't work.
But thank God we've got good news.
On the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ bought
the right to give repentance and faith, and
he's in that business, praise God.
We've got hope there.
The sixth issue.
Moffat translates Romans 11.29, God never
goes back on his call.
The King James says, The gifts and callings
of God are without repentance.
That's pretty good.
I like Moffat's translation.
God never goes back on his call.
He never does ever want to swap back.
That good evil has several things wrapped up
in this, and I just mention it, and
I'll quit.
Believers are going to persevere in holiness, because
that's what they were chosen for.
They were chosen in him, but they must
persevere in holiness.
Believers are going to be conformed to the
image of Christ, but listen to me, they
must be conformed to the image of Christ.
I've studied the Puritans, and I've studied John
and Calvin.
I've studied everybody I could find money to
buy books or borrow from.
I differ with the Puritans.
I differ with Brother Calvin.
I believe the warnings in the book of
Hebrews are not the people who almost got
saved, but did.
I wish I could believe that when he
talks about people who've tasted and been illuminated,
tasted the power, folks who almost got saved,
but I believe they got saved.
You want to throw me out?
I believe that New Testament salvation calls for
you to spit on your hands and roll
up your sleeves and see to it that
these terrible warnings never take place in your
life.
That's what I believe.
Now you can ask me some questions about
that, I can't answer.
You say, well Brother Barnett, you going to
tear up our whole Baptist doctrine about the
eternal security of the believer?
I don't know what to do about it.
But I'm going to look you in the
face and tell you now that the scriptures
talk about crucifying afresh the Son of God,
and it's talking to God's people.
It talks about putting Him to open shame,
and it's talking to save people.
And I used an expression one time, the
light shot me.
I believe that hell is hot on your
trail tonight.
I believe the devil will get you if
he can.
I believe that God's people better quit getting
the doctrine out of books, and they'd better
face the fact that salvation isn't something you
can put in a tin can.
It's a daily relationship.
And if there ever was a generation of
church people this side of hell, it needs
to be shocked out of this damnable, carnal
idea that this conservative believer lived like hell
and go to heaven when you die.
No, no.
Our forefathers thought they needed what they called
the means of grace.
There is a cocksureness today that's going to
fill hell full of church members if we
don't watch out.
I don't know how to handle those passages
that just scare the living daylights out of
me.
If we sin willfully, that's talking to Christian
people, folks.
How shall we escape if we treat like
this so great salvation?
That's talking to Christian people.
You say, Brother Barnard, you're trying to scare
us into doing right.
The book of Hebrews will if you read
it.
It dead sure will.
Oh, it's impossible to renew them to repentance.
That scares me.
But the gifts and callings of God are
without repentance.
God never goes back on his call.
Therefore, brethren, beloved, we're persuaded better things for
you and things that accompany salvation.
And I close with this description of the
God-man-with-side of salvation.
The Lord knoweth them who put their trust
in him and let everyone that nameth the
name of the Lord depart from iniquity.
Run from it.
The child of God will be conformed to
the image of Christ, but he must be
put upon the whole arm of God.
Dig in.
These choruses made me homesick.
I love them.
I love you people.
Do your best.
Let's practice auditorium.
Let's have a good time in the Lord,
will you?
Go after peace.