Welcome to From the Pulpit and Classic Sermons.
Each week we bring you a different message
from some of history's greatest speakers in the
Christian faith and powerful sermons from modern preachers
too.
This week we have Rolf Bernard with his
message, The Great Need of the Hour.
In the 16th chapter of the Book of
Acts, I read just a few verses.
Verse 25, this is the account of a
moving, of a living God who did something
that only God can do.
And I love to read this chapter again
and again and again, because we are dead
sure come to the place now when man's
best didn't get the job done.
Our best service is failing, looks like now.
Our best consecration isn't enough now.
This is a time the psalmist had in
mind when he said it is time for
thee to work, O God, for they have
made void thy law.
This is the hour when nothing can save
us from any direction you want to talk
about, except an intervention of a God that
the Bible talks about, who can do that
which would get the attention of people today,
when nobody's interested in eternal things.
Only God is the answer for this hour.
And here we encourage ourselves as we read
again into an old, old time where a
sovereign God, and by a sovereign God we
simply mean no God who's an absent monarch,
who created a world and people and gave
us some rules and hoped we'd stumble along
and do the best we could.
But when we mention the word sovereign God,
we mean a living God.
Greatest illustration of what we mean by the
word sovereign God is the sermon Jonathan Edwards
preached on the center and the hands of
an angel God when he so preached that
men actually believed that God held them in
his hand.
And that's where he does hold men.
He said that God could just drop them
into the pack.
Now you can get that word sovereign in
your head and use it as a club,
but if you get it in your heart,
God knows it's the need of the hour.
That's the human being be conscious of the
fact that they're in the hands not of
a creed or a machine, but a living
God who gives them the very breath they
breathe.
Now this generation don't know anything about that
kind of a God, do we?
And here at one time he intervened in
verse 25, Paul and Silas got put in
jail.
And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and
sang praises unto God and the prisoners heard
them.
And suddenly there was a great earthquake so
that the foundations of the prison were shaken
and a great earthquake took place.
And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and
sang praises unto God and the prisoners heard
them.
And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and
sang praises unto God and the prisoners heard
them.
And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and
sang praises unto God and the prisoners heard
them.
And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and
sang praises unto God and the prisoners heard
them.
And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and
sang praises unto God and the prisoners heard
them.
And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and
sang praises unto God and the prisoners heard
them.
And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and
sang praises unto God and the prisoners heard
them.
And at midnight Paul and
Silas
prayed and sang praises unto God and the
prisoners heard them.
And at midnight and said, Sirs, what must
I do to be saved?
And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and thou shalt be saved in thy
house."
Beginning in verse 16 of this chapter, we're
introduced to some Christians who were witnessing, and
then went to praying, and were introduced to
a living, miracle-working God, and it resulted
in a trembling sinner, screaming for life as
to how he could be saved.
We could reproduce these characters.
I say that not blasphemously.
In any church that's as far as a
half an inch from hell, we could have
a measure of glory and blessing and revival
that would spread to bring living water on
parched hearts all about.
As I said this morning, it's been 226
years since revival has come to America.
We desperately need it.
Apart from the return of the Lord, we
desperately need God to come on the scene,
until men would become conscious that they are
in the hands of a living God.
And I think the pattern, since God always
uses means, is brought out in this chapter.
First, we've got some witnessing.
A fellow by the name of Paul and
Silas are going around, and a little girl,
possessed of powers of divination and the tool
of the devil.
She followed these men, verse 17, and she
paid them a tremendous compliment.
These men are the servants of the Most
High God, which show unto us the way
of salvation.
These men were engaged in the best business
between the eternities.
I've been preaching quite a while, and I
resign from the ministry about every Monday, or
at least every time I close a meeting.
Don't do it publicly.
But I don't know I'm living in a
world where everything else is important except to
find the way of salvation.
And I'm sometimes tempted, I really am, to
go into the improvement business.
We could just improve the lot of mankind.
That'd be good, wouldn't it?
Or we get into politics.
This nation of ours is rotten governmental and
political in every other way.
I said, well, I believe I'll go into
that sort of boring in me.
I trained to be a lawyer, for God's
sake.
But Paul and Silas were going about in
this city of Philippi, sticking to just one
thing.
They thought it was the most important thing
that any human being ever be called upon
to consider.
And this little demon-possessed girl said, These
be the servants of the Most High God,
who do show unto us the way of
salvation.
And she just followed him around until Paul
got tired of it.
He turned and rebuked the demon on her
and set her free.
And that's where he got in trouble.
Oh, that's the kind of trouble I wish
we could get in again.
We get into so much trouble trying to
do something that isn't the main thing.
But wouldn't it be Christ's blessing of God
if he'd anoint a preacher and a church
together, and we'd get in trouble with the
spirit of this ungodly age?
Because we were pressing with Holy Spirit power
the way of salvation.
Paul and Silas got in trouble with this
little girl's masters, because the demon's gone.
She could look into the future now and
make money for them.
So they went to the powers that be.
And the next thing you know, Paul and
Silas Dunn got arrested.
Beat half to death for putting stocks way
down in the cell of prison.
And there they are, in jail, for the
simple reason they'd been going about showing people
the way of salvation.
But say, Brother Barnes, they got in trouble
with casting the demon out of that girl.
But blessed God, Satan's got to be locked
before sinners can be loosed.
That's right.
That's a part of it.
The power of hell's got to be backed
up before the glory of the living Christ
will be revealed.
It's always that way.
And there isn't an issue before God's people
now.
Why is it so fascinating and so challenging
and so all-important as to learn how
not to split hairs over doctrine or anything
else, but to build up on the forces
of hell and get on the offensive and
quit tucking our tail and turning this generation
over to the demons of hell?
Yes, sir, they cast this demon out.
It's always been true that everything God's done,
He's done by the word of command.
He speaks, and a world is created.
He speaks, and He hangs out the sun.
He speaks, and He divides the land and
its water.
He speaks, and the man with a widowed
hand is able to stretch it forth.
He speaks, and a dead lasher has come
from the grave.
And God taught God's people to begin to
speak the word of command in the name,
in the power, in the authority of the
living Lord.
Come to take our stand and occupy some
territory for King Jesus and spit ambidextrous in
the devil's face and tell him to go
back to hell where it belongs, that we're
going to occupy some land and capture some
men and lock the jaws of hell and
find the power of Satan.
And that's how salvation comes to men.
That's right.
And we got in jail.
We got in jail.
There are two people, most of us nice
church members.
We're nice.
We wasn't hurt a flea.
We weren't hurt a flea.
We're the nicest folks here.
We got our doctrine all straight, and it's
ossified and dead, and it's killed us, but
we touched.
Amen.
And we got all our convictions.
We got pockets full of convictions.
Got this pocket full of this kind, and
this full of this kind, and this full
of this kind.
And we're out here trying to wish our
convictions off on people, and that ain't even
nice, much less Christian.
And we don't know much about a living
God or a personal devil.
It's because we've been so nice we haven't
been invading Satan's territory.
Amen.
Did you know, ladies and gentlemen, the whole
generation of people, grown up, grown up, why
don't we have two stars?
We've lost them.
We can't catch them.
We've got to separate it.
We can't catch men with a cap on
and a marionette rope.
And we need to get involved.
You've been criticizing these colored people having those
demonstrations.
I think they're going at it wrong, but
they're getting involved, brother.
You've been criticizing these beatnik students out at
the University of California at Berkeley.
They've been telling the governor and the faculty
and everybody else how to go.
Well, they're all wrong, you say, I know,
but they're getting involved in the issues of
this day.
You've been criticizing the communists that have taken
over a third of the world in a
little while, you know.
Well, brother, they've got the most flaming religion
this side of eternity, and they're getting involved.
I stand here before and tell you the
greatest evangelistic force in America now is the
Roman Catholic priest.
You go to your hospitals on Sunday morning,
you can't get down the corridors.
The prominent Catholic businessmen passing out tracts.
And next time you see a priest walking
down the street, he's got a scuttle of
coal and a loaf of bread, and he's
heading down some back alley to do what
he calls evangelism, to keep somebody from freezing
to death and starving in the name of
the Church.
What you talking about, brother Mark?
I'm talking about it's time that we woke
up to the fact that we hadn't rolled
up our sleeves and got out here in
the thick of the battle and got involved
in our day.
That's what I'm talking about.
Don't you get mad at me that this
world don't give a hoop if you are
sound on doctrine?
Does it?
They don't care.
But if you get involved in what's eating
up the souls and bodies of men today,
you'll find out there's a living God, and
you'll find out there's a personal devil.
These witnessing Christians, they just had to go
praying.
I don't know what it'd take to get
old Ralph Barnett and Paul Kirkman and you
folks to pray, but I guess if we
got involved and got about half our ribs
caved in, all our teeth knocked out, we
might either tuck our tails and quit, or
we'd learn how to intercede at the throne
of God.
Oh, this generation going to hell in it's
jet leg and jet airplanes.
We don't know how to intercede at the
throne of grace.
I want you to hear my message on
sinful praying.
I'm going to tear up your little old
praying.
God knows it's a disgrace, and we got
to get to where God could still be
God and listen to us when we pray.
I'm for your passing out circles.
God bless you.
I'm for your lip testimony.
God bless you.
But ain't none of it going to do
much good now, and you just well face
it.
We are up against a praying situation now.
That's right.
You tell me one thing we could do
now that would make a dent on the
anti-Christian climate in spitting distance of this
little church house.
We can't do that.
This is praying time for the saints of
God to learn how to wrestle with the
powers of hell and lock the devil's jaws
and loose the power of God.
But old Paul and Silas, they put them
in jail, and they began to pray and
sing songs.
I think old Paul said, well, I guess
we better get in touch with the headquarters.
It looks like we're sort of a mess
down here.
And he got on the telephone, ring, ring,
he rang number one of the end of
the line and said, this is the living
Lord talking.
And Paul said, this is Paul and Silas,
your bond slaves, and we're down here in
Philippi, and we got our feet in the
stock, and our backs are bleeding, they beat
us about half to death, and we're cold
and hungry and lonesome, and kind of got
the blues just a little bit, and we
thought we better report to headquarters.
And Jesus said, well, how come you got
down there in jail, Paul?
Well, he said, we were going up and
down the city showing men the way of
salvation.
They all got religion, but they don't know
how to go to glory, and we're showing
them the way.
And he said, in order to do it,
we had to cast out a demon and
loose a little girl, and a master reported
us, and they beat us and put us
in jail.
And Jesus said, well, just hold the phone,
I'll be right down.
And pretty soon, bless God, he intervened.
Now, Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises
to God, and the prisoners heard them pray
and heard them praise God, but they felt
it when God came on the scene.
Paul didn't bring an earthquake to living, Lord
did.
Silas didn't bring an earthquake to living, Lord
brought the earthquake.
They did the praying, they did the praising,
they did the witnessing, and God Almighty did
the confirming.
That's right.
Oh, boy, that's what we want.
I'll fight you to get a good doctrinal
base.
I will.
But I'll fight you if you always want
to think that that's it, brother, that's just
something to stand on to resist the devil
and proclaim Christ.
To invade a heathen world with the demand
that men and women give a listen to
the claims of Almighty God for the Son
of His love.
To die with the authority of the Holy
Ghost coming down from heaven sweeping over your
soul.
Listen, listen.
It was God that brought the earthquake, and
men felt something when God came on the
scene.
A miracle working, God.
A gospel confirming, God.
I'm crying to God as I grow older.
I didn't need the Lord much when I
was 30 years old.
I thought I could make it all right,
but I'm 62.
I'm not as old as I hoped to
be, but I'm older than I was 30
years ago.
And as the years creep in on me,
I won't be here forever.
Oh, my soul, how hungry I'm getting.
How desperate I'm getting for the confirming work
of Almighty God on the preaching of the
gospel in my day.
I'm so tired of preaching nice little sermons
that people enjoy and it doesn't disturb anybody.
I'm so tired of being alone as if
God Almighty had gone off on a fishing
trip and left it with us.
Brother Kirkman, I'm so tired of preaching the
gospel of the grace of God that shuts
me up to God doing something for them.
When I haven't got God doing something for
them as I preach, I'm hungry for the
confirming work of God Almighty.
And old Paul and Silas, they witnessed and
they prayed and they sang praises to God.
And then they got in touch with the
headquarters and headquarters didn't pull its arms and
say, well, but you've gotten a mess by
yourself.
Get out the best you can.
No.
God sent an earthquake and he rattled the
locks off of the doors.
And the prisoners were gone.
You don't learn salvation.
You catch it.
You feel it, brother.
That's right.
We can explain God's alive.
This generation is not paying any attention to
us.
This generation needs an earthquake.
God won't have to send an earthquake, won't
have to start now churches, won't have to
shake us up, won't have to turn us
inside out, peel us gut, put salt in
our wounds, break our hearts and set us
on fire to invade this generation with the
claims of Jesus Christ.
We can't do it.
We can witness.
We can pray.
We can praise God until God begins to
answer and sends his bolts of lightning to
split the hearts of men and confront men
with Jesus Christ.
Now this miracle working God got something done.
You know what he did?
He got the attention of that jailer.
He came running out about half scared to
death.
And he said, what must I do to
be saved?
Be ready.
Men's hearts have to be prepared before they'll
ever ask that question.
Oh, aren't you sort of tired of witnessing
nobody paying any attention to you?
I'm tired of preaching.
Nothing much happened.
I'll tell you that right now.
I ain't preaching down to nobody, but you've
asked me a pill, you sick bastard.
And I appreciate you asking me.
The stage would play out.
I have revival and I haven't taken an
engagement for a long time.
You can close it in the night, but
I've honored you.
I honor the pastor.
I love to see some people get in
this thing and pray down and weep down
and sob down and act up.
Till somebody would begin to listen to the
gospel of the glory of God.
This old trembling sinner, bless God, you didn't
have to slip up on his blind side.
You just had to get out of the
way.
He's undone having to hear God shook him.
God shook him.
He is ready.
He is ready for the civil war down
the state of Georgia.
He's having a revival meeting, the colored people,
slaves on one of the big plantations down
in Georgia.
And the white owner, the boss, one night
he decided to go down and attend the
meeting.
A few minutes, he and the slaves were
behaving themselves.
He stood on the fringe of the crowd
and listened to the old colored preacher preach.
And the old colored preacher didn't know much,
but what he knew was sold.
He's preaching hell hot and eternity long and
judgment sure in Christ.
The only hope, but he is the hopeless
sinner.
And the next day, the white man was
going across the plantation and ran into old
Sambo.
Sambo was sort of the straw boss of
all of the colored people on the plantation.
And the white man stopped old Sambo and
said, Sambo, I was down to the meeting
last night.
Sambo said, yes sir, boss man, we've seen
you down there.
We're sure glad to have you with us.
He said, you know, you've got quite a
preacher down there.
He said, yes sir, boss man.
He said he preached the gospel without fail
or favor and declared the whole counsel of
God.
And the white man said, you know, Sambo,
I listened to that preacher a little while
last night and he scared me.
He said, I've been so busy running this
plantation, making a living, keeping you colored people
straight.
I never had thought much about where I'd
go when I die, but according to what
your preacher said, when I die, I'm going
to go right straight to hell.
Sambo said, yes sir, boss, that's exactly where
you were.
Well, he said, you know, I never had
thought about it, but he said it bothered
me some time last night and I couldn't
go to sleep very well.
He said, Sambo, he said, I know you,
you are my friend.
He said, I want to ask you something.
Sambo said, ask away.
He said, could you tell me how I
could get God Almighty to save me and
not send me to hell?
Sambo said, yes sir, boss man, I can
sure tell you.
Well, he said, I wish you would.
Well, he said, boss man, you see that
hog pen right over there?
He said, you go over to that hog
pen, you climb up on that rail fence
and you climb over and get over in
the northeast corner where the hogs got their
wallow and you get out on your knees
in that wallow and close your eyes and
ask God to have mercy on your soul
for Jesus' sake.
And he said, he's liable to do it.
And the boss man gave him a little
curse and said, ah, Sambo, I didn't want
you to jump up.
And he walked away.
But that night, strange that drawn, he decided
he better go down and see if the
colored people behave in themselves.
And he stood again and listened to the
old preacher preach.
And that night he went home and he
tossed and tossed and tossed on his bed
and he had a terrible time.
And the next day he met old Sambo
again.
He said, Sambo, back down here, the preacher
last night said, yes sir, that's the answer
to the prayer.
He said, those colored people have been praying.
You'd better get under the sound of the
gospel.
Maybe God's going to save your soul.
He said, Sambo, he said, I couldn't sleep
a wink last night.
He said, I'm scared.
I'm afraid I'm going to die and go
to hell.
He said, Sambo, don't joke me today.
He said, joke me, yes, but don't joke
me today.
Can you tell me how I can get
God Almighty to save me and not send
me to hell?
Don't joke me, Sambo.
And Sambo said, boss, I go and tell
you.
He said, you see that hog pen?
He said, you go over there at that
hog pen, you climb over the rail tracks
and you go over there and get in
the northeast corner where the hogs got their
water and you go in on your knee
and close your eyes and ask God to
have mercy on your soul and save you
for Jesus' sake.
He said, he's liable to do it.
And the boss man gave him an oath
and went away again.
But that night he decided he'd better go
back and see if the colored people behaved
themselves, and so he did.
And he listened to more of the sermon
that night.
And he tossed and tossed and he got
up and he tried to pray and he
didn't know how.
And he tried to read the Bible and
it was a closed book too.
And the poor old fellow was in a
terrible, terrible shape.
And at three o'clock in the morning
he got up and got a lantern, put
his trousers on, his shirt tail tucked in,
his hat on, yay!
Knocked on old Sambo's cat door.
Sambo, all bleary-eyed and sleepy, came out
and said, boss man, what on earth are
you doing this time of the night?
He said, Sambo, I'm desperate.
He said, I can't sleep and I can't
pray and I don't know what to do
and I feel like I'm going to slip
into hell before morning.
And he said, I've asked you to tell
me if God would save me and you've
joked with me.
Sambo, please don't joke with me tonight.
Tell me how I can get God to
save me and not send me to hell.
Sambo said, boss man, I can't tell you.
He said, you go to that hog pit
and you climb over the rail fence and
you get over there in the northeast corner
where the hogs got their wallow.
And you get on your knees and close
your eyes and ask God to have mercy
on you and save you for Jesus' sake.
He said, he's liable to do it.
And the white man just started walking toward
the hog pit.
And old Sambo got in his trousers right
quick and followed him.
And the white man got over there and
he stepped over the old rail, the old
rail fence and straddled it and started down.
He got his right foot on the last
rail just before he got in the mud.
And old Sambo said, boss man, wait just
a minute.
He said, have you asked your God to
do that?
And the white man said, I don't see
a better sense on earth.
I don't know why a man got to
get on that hog pit for God to
save, but said, I want to be saved.
I don't want to go to hell.
And I've asked him, that's all you'll tell
me.
And that's what I'm going to do.
And he started to step down.
And old Sambo said, wait just a minute,
boss man, you don't have to actually do
it.
You just got to be willing to.
Oh, if men were willing, it's
so easy.
And that's what we want to see here.
And that's what I want to hear.
Men and women willing to be saved by
the foolishness of proclaiming a man hanging on
a cross.
God taking him out of the grave, putting
him on the throne, turning the destiny of
men over to him, bloodstained, enthroned, the living
Lord of glory.
My people shall be willing in the day
of his power.
I'm going to challenge my heart and yours
to be in the place where God will
listen to us.
Keeping all the glory to himself, he'll come
and send an earthquake.
Get the attention of men and women in
your day and mine.
You've been listening to the From the Pulpit
and Classic Sermon Series.
This week you heard Rolf Bernard with his
message, The Great Need of the Hour.
Tune in next week for another powerful message
from God's Word on From the Pulpit and
Classic Sermons.