My friends, I come to say that the Old Gospel of God’s Grace is opposed to this “new gospel” of part grace and part man. The Old Gospel, which is the true Gospel of God, safeguarded some values, which this “new gospel” loses.

Now my friends, this popular position has two unhappy results — this preaching that God has done His part and now He helplessly stands by while you decide whether or not his purpose shall be realized:

In the first place, this position compels us to misunderstand the significance of the gracious invitations of Christ in the Gospel. When we hear the invitations of these preachers who pervert the Gospel, they are not the expressions of the tender patience of a mighty Sovereign—they are the pathetic pleas of human desire. And so the enthroned Lord of glory under present-day preaching is suddenly changed into a weak, futile figure, knocking at the human heart which He is powerless to open. My friends, this is a shameful dishonor to the Sovereign Christ of the New Testament.

In the second place, this “new gospel” as it is preached forces us to deny our dependence upon God; when it comes to vital decisions, it takes us out of God’s hands. It tells us that after all, we are the master of our fate, and the captain of our souls. And it so undermines the very foundation of our relationship with our Maker. No wonder the converts of today are so often both irreverent and irreligious.

The Old Gospel speaks very differently in expounding man’s need of Christ; the Old Gospel stresses something almost ignored today. That something is that sinners cannot obey the Gospel any more than they can obey the law, apart from renewal of heart. On the other hand, declaring Christ’s power to save, the Old Gospel proclaims Him as the Author and chief agent of conversion. It preaches Him as coming by His Spirit as the Gospel goes forth to renew men’s hearts and draw them to Himself. Thus, the Old Gospel, while stressing that faith is man’s duty, stresses also that faith is not in man’s power. God must give what He commands.

Ephesians 2:8 says, “For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.”

Hebrews 12:2a says: “Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith…”

Thus the Old Gospel announces not merely that men must come to Christ for salvation, but the Old Gospel also announces that men cannot come unless God draws them.

John 6:44 says, “No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him…”

John 14:6 says, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father but by Me.”

John 3:27 says, “John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from Heaven.”

Thus, my friends, the Old Gospel does what desperately needs to be done; it labors to overthrow self-confidence, it labors to convince sinners that salvation is altogether out of their hands, and to shut sinners up to a self-despairing dependence on the glorious grace of a Sovereign Savior, not only for their righteousness, but for their faith, too. Thus the Old Gospel doesn’t talk about deciding for Christ, as we hear today. For this business of deciding for Christ suggests voting a person into office. It suggests an act in which the candidate plays no part, beyond offering himself for election. Everything is settled by the voter’s independent choice. I wish people would believe me when I tell you that we do not vote God’s Son into office as our Savior! Nor does our Savior remain passive while preachers campaign on His behalf.

My friends, coming to Christ, resting on Christ and turning from sin in full surrender to Christ is far different from deciding for Christ as your Savior. Those who pervert the Gospel beg people to accept Jesus as their Savior, and they will be saved. That is a lie out of Hell, because it is not in the Bible. If a person does not surrender to Jesus Christ as your Lord to rule and reign over you — Why! — You are not saved! We also hear these words spoken by preachers who pervert the Gospel: “Now sinners, God has done His part — the Devil wants you, and Christ wants you, and you have the deciding vote.” But, my friends, that is a lie out of Hell! Christ didn’t just offer Himself for office. He is working now, He is on a throne now ruling and reigning as Prophet, Priest, and King. He does not stand by while we try to get people to decide for Him as the Gospel is proclaimed.

He comes in the Spirit actively to draw men to Himself, and thus we preachers say that He is a Savior for sinners. The Father and the Spirit draw sinners to Christ. Salvation is of the Lord. Thank God it is all in Christ. And to the question, “What must I do to be saved?” And this is the question of questions. The Old Gospel replies, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” And then, somebody says, “What does that mean?” The Old Gospel replies, “It means knowing one’s self to be a sinner and Christ who died for sinners. It means to abandon all self-righteousness and self-confidence,and cast yourself wholly upon Christ for pardon and peace. It means exchanging one’s natural enmity and rebellion against God for a spirit of grateful submission to the will of Christ, through the renewing of one’s heart by the Holy Ghost. It means God taking a sinner and making him a new creature in Christ.”

The next question, how am I to go about believing on Christ and repenting? Brother Barnard, you say I have no natural ability to do these things? I didn’t say that — God says that! If I have no ability to do these things, how am I to go about believing on Christ and repenting? If you say I must — and I can’t — how can it come to pass? To that perplexing question, and yet true one, the Old Gospel answers, “Listen, sinner friend, look to Christ. Quit looking to yourself; quit listening to your old bent and feeble will; look to Christ, seek the Lord, beg for mercy.”

1 Samuel 2:8 says, “He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory…”

Isaiah 45:22 says, “Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.”

Isaiah 55:6 says, “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near.”

Jeremiah 29:13 says, “And ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart.”

Cry to Christ, just as you are, cast yourself on His mercy, ask Him to give you a new heart, working in you true repentance and faith. Ask Christ to take away your evil heart of unbelief and to write His law in your heart. Draw near to Him, watching, praying, reading, and hearing His Word. And continue to seek the Lord til He speaks peace to you. God Almighty has to perform a miracle in you and reveal Christ in you, for you to have eternal life.

John 17:3 says, “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent.”

Luke 10:22 says, “All things are delivered to Me of My Father: and no man knoweth Who the Son is, but the Father; and Who the Father is, but the Son, and He to whom the Son shall reveal Him.”

The Holy Ghost has to baptize you into the body of Christ.

1 Corinthians 12:13a says, “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body…”

Our Lord Jesus Christ is not passively waiting, but is actively working to bring His chosen people to faith. The preaching of the “new gospel” is called bringing men to Christ, as if only men moved while Christ stands still. The true Gospel is the coming of Christ to men. As the Gospel is preached, and Christ is set before men’s eyes, the mighty Savior, Whom the Gospel proclaims busy — “Praise God” — doing His work through the Word. Not standing by, but visiting sinners with salvation, awakening them to faith and drawing them in mercy to Himself. Thank God, we don’t have to use all these methods of the flesh to get somebody to decide to accept Christ! We just have to proclaim Christ in the power of the Holy Ghost! We don’t have to look at those poor sinners and know that it all depends on them. But we know that as we preach Christ, He is standing by, He is working, He is dealing with men. He is opening blind eyes and bless God, He is drawing sinners to Himself. Oh, how glorious it is to proclaim Christ Who came into the world to save sinners! Praise His Holy Name!

Luke 5:32 says, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Galatians 1:6-9 says, “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel, which is not another, but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from Heaven, preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.”

Blessed Father, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for revealing the Gospel of Christ to us. Please reveal to Your children the Gospel of Christ and have mercy on sinners. We beg in His blessed Name. Amen!

“And she shall bring forth a Son, and though shalt call His name Jesus: for He shall save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

Christ died to make men H-O-L-Y, holy, Salvation is in Christ; it’s in Him, not in what he did apart from Who He is. I believe the most damning fundamental preaching that is taking place in the southland today is the preaching that leads people to think they have an interest in the death of Christ, with being vitally joined together to Him in their daily walk. We’ve been preaching salvation through a representative that we never came into contact with. I want to lift a voice from time to time from the perfect life and glorious death and resurrection and present intercession of our Lord except as you are vitally and really and experientially and actually joined to the Lord Jesus Christ.

The limit of His salvation is found in Matthew 1:21;

“For He shall save His people from their sins.”

The only way on earth that the Lord Jesus Christ could become the Substitute and die instead of anybody else was to be vitally and spiritually and legally under the law of God, joined to that body that is His, and those people are His by the Divine decree of Almighty God. It is silly to talk about Christ dying in man’s stead, unless that person had been joined to the Lord positionally before there was even a star.

Eph. 1:4-6: “According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved.”

It is high time that somebody warned this generation of preachers who dare place their little finite mind against the wisdom of God, and make fun of and sneer at the glorious truth that God is a God of purpose, and that the work of His blessed Son is simply limited by the purpose of God had in it.

2Tim. 1:9, “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.”

A young fellow told me the other day that he believed in the glorious doctrine that Jesus died for a people, not to get a people, but for a people who are already given to Him of the Father (John 6:37,65). But he said, “If I preached that in my church, it would tear my church into pieces.” I said, “Yes, it will tear your church into pieces,” and I further said, “Young man, I am sick and tired of hearing two-bit preachers call an institution that Jesus gave His blood to purchase theirs; it isn’t your Church, son, it belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. And there isn’t any truth in the Bible that will split God’s Church. There is not a truth in the Bible that will split a church that was given to the Lord Jesus Christ by the Father.” Now I want to be charitable, but we must stand for truth!

I was taking to another young preacher this week and he said, “Brother Barnard, I haven’t got a deacon in my church and I haven’t got a single young lady in my church that doesn’t spend Saturday night till 3 or 4 o’clock Sunday morning on the dance floors. Then they come up and act like deacons.” I didn’t say anything. Not a deacon in a Baptist church that doesn’t spend Saturday night till Sunday morning on the dance floors hugging someone else’s wife!!! I wanted to say, “Son, the preaching that shuts men and women up to the truth that God Almighty is not going to try to improve their old wicked hearts, for their hearts are represented in the Scripture as incurable sickness. God Almighty is not going to try to improve old Rolf Barnard’s sinful nature! The only thing that He is going to do is to deal it a death blow and give Rolf Barnard a new nature–and in that new nature the principle of holiness is planted within the heart of an old rotten sinner.

Ezekiel 11:19-20, “And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new Spirit within you; and I will take out the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh; That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”

We want to show how the Holy Spirit baptized and identified His people in the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that everybody who is ever saved gets in the family of God by being born of the Spirit just as supernaturally, and just as miraculously as the Lord Jesus Christ was born out of the womb of Mary. The most humbling thing I ever faced in the Word of God is how the Holy Spirit planted a Divine Seed in the womb of a natural woman and out of that a Holy Thing. That is exactly what regeneration is: the implantation of the Divine Nature of God in the old dirty cesspool heart of Rolfe Barnard shall come that which is holy, a new nature that, Bless God, will result in a new way of walking that is pleasing to God. Did you get it? I want you to hear this.

That brings me to my subject, “What is Holiness?” Christ came to make us holy. That song, “Christ Hath Died to Make Men Holy” – they got it out of the Scriptures. Christ did die to make men holy. Christ died so that sin should no longer lord over us.

Romans 6:11-14: “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”

Christ died not only that we might be reckoned perfect as God looks on us in Him, but Christ died that our lives should be lives of daily victory over sin. Praise God, when a man is born again, the power of sin has been broken, and sin can’t lord over that child of God anymore. That is all in the purpose of God. There isn’t anything about which there is more ignorance than what Bible holiness is. And yet there isn’t anything that is closer to the heart of God or the heart of the Gospel than this simple statement: Christ didn’t come down here to save people from hell; but He came down here to make a people who had been given Him by the Father, to make them where they might live like kings!

Romans 5:21: “That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Bless the Lord, the reason my Lord came down here was so that His people would be delivered from king of sin unto King of Grace, and that grace should so revolutionize sinful men, that men would reign lording over sin, instead of sin reigning over us – overruling, overcoming, instead of being defeated That Grace Might Reign.

Somebody preached half of the Gospel, preached justification and left off sanctification. That isn’t so; that Gospel that stops on justification is not the Gospel! The book of Romans can’t be divided. You listen to me: that Gospel says that Jesus Christ through His death declares men and woman to be righteous, when they are not righteous, is not what the book of Romans teaches. Romans teaches that the way God saves a sinner is that He makes a man righteous. He doesn’t declare anything about it, He doesn’t fill up heaven with people that God says are righteous when they aren’t. But the Gospel received, embraced, believed and experienced in the life of an individual not only constitutes him just in the sight of the Law of God, but it also constitutes him righteous before God.

Did you know that Jesus Christ cannot save anybody except a righteous man? A man must be counted righteous and that righteousness that we are talking about now is IMPLANTED HOLINESS.

Some years ago I was asked to preach in another denomination. They said, “We want you to bring your message on the grace of God.” I said, “I don’t believe your people will stand my preaching.” “Oh, yes we will!” I held four or five meetings in their churches and they found out that I was right, because every time I preached what I believe is true, it offended the very heart of their doctrinal belief. There were people who are fond of using the expression, “We are saved and sanctified,” and I wouldn’t use their expression. I said that expression was of the devil, that it dishonors Christ and that expression de-hearts the Gospel. I said, “If you would use the term, justified and sanctified, then you would have the Gospel.”

Why is that several denominations including nearly all Baptists now have just preached a Gospel and said that was God justifying a sinner? I’ll tell you why, because the heart of the whole thing is founded in the purpose of God electing a sinner to start with.

Ephesians 1:4: “According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.”

That’s the offense of the cross now. Anybody on the earth can keep a bunch of unsaved church members putting the tithe in the storehouse to promote a program, if you continue to preach that God Almighty considers men and women to be His apart from working holiness in their daily experience. That’s right. That is the reason some denominations say, “I am saved all right, but I’m carnal.” Some Baptists say, “I’m a carnal Christian.” Some say, “He is saved but not separated.”

I hear the expression, “He is saved but he is not walking with the Lord.” Some say, “He is saved, but not living right.” Some even say, “He is saved, but his is not living right.” My soul, they have fixed it so that salvation doesn’t mean a thing now!

I don’t know much – and I am studying the Bible hard because of the little I do know – but if I could do what God knows I want to do, I would lift up this little old voice of mine, and I would attack and fight and do everything I could to put out of business anything on earth that detracts from the glorious Truth that my Lord Jesus Christ came down here to confound the devil by demonstrating what holy lives could be lived by men and women who are the products and the beneficiaries of the saving grace of God!

The Scriptures tells us in a saving sinner God has two motives:

First, it redounds to the praise of the glory of His grace. That’s in heaven.

2 Cor. 4:14-15: “Knowing that He which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.”

Secondly, His motive is to confound the devil down here in this world.

1 Corinthians 1:27, “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.”

He is going to show the principalities, and everybody, and going to put them to an open shame. How? By talking an old sinner in the pit of corruption, and redeeming him by the blood, regenerating him by the Spirit and growing him by the grace of God until that sinner is a walking demonstration of the fact that God is holy.

Colosians 2:13-15: “And you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses; Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross; And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.”

Hebrews 12:14: “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.”

He is not talking about imputed holiness that we have in Christ Jesus – which is our hope and salvation, and nothing we can do but He is simply saying here…it doesn’t say without holiness a man shall not be saved, but it does say without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Any Bible student will tell you that the “see” in this connection means, “without holiness you can’t have any fellowship with Him, you can’t commune with Him, you can’t worship Him.” And I said that without daily practical devotion to the will of God, which is holiness in your life, you can’t have one thing from God Almighty. Do you get what I’m saying? We are constituted perfectly holy in Christ, and through the work of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God we gradually and constantly from grace to grace, from faith to faith, grow NOT SIMPLY TO BE MORE HOLY, but grow in holiness. A man doesn’t become more holy; he is either holy or unholy.

An unsaved man is absolutely unholy; a saved man is absolutely holy. But we do grow, not toward holiness but in holiness. That is, we develop. I am going to show you that this word HOLINESS in Hebrews 12:14 is not the imputed holiness that we have in Christ, not the growing in holiness, but it is talking about the way you live. And the Scriptures say that without your experience of what you call salvation developing in your life the habit of obedience to the will of God, which is holiness, then you can’t having anything from the Lord. If that is so, God help us, if that is so, that is a challenge. Will you let Brother Barnard help you? We are chosen unto holiness.

To call one’s self a saved person while living in sin and enmity to God is downright foolishness.

2 Thessalonians 2:13, “But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.”

And a man who calls himself a child of God who does not have the one evidence that the work of grace is real in the heart, and that evidence is practical obedience to the will of God – a man who doesn’t have that evidence, doesn’t have evidence! That is the evidence that God saved you; that is the evidence that you are one of God’s children. This is working in your life. Without holiness, no man would be capable of serving God in heaven. Without holiness, no man would be capable of beholding the glories of Christ here. Without holiness no man can serve God, now or later! Without holiness no man can have fellowship with God now or then. We are chosen, not because we are holy, but that we might be made holy.

What then is Bible holiness? It is not heathen asceticism; it is not that you draw off from the world. It is not that you get down like Elijah under the juniper tree and everybody is wrong about you. It is not the absence of something. Bible holiness is not pharisaical self-righteousness. Listen to Rolfe Barnard! Any man on earth that sets himself up to judge the other fellow as to what makes him tick shows that he is an unsaved Pharisee, and he had never seen his own rotten heart! And you never did get saved without a look at your own rottenness, did you? And if you have ever seen yourself in the mirror of God Almighty’s holiness, you never saw a man that you didn’t thing was better than you. It is not pharisaical self-righteousness.

If there was anything my Lord hated, it was the fellow that was always talking about “I DO THIS” and “I DO THAT” Ah! He never had a kind word for that fellow who had such a small glimpse of God that he had a good opinion of himself. It is dead certain that the greatest saint of God you ever met had the most terrible opinion of himself, and he experienced something like Paul who started out by being just an apostle but would up by saying he was “the least of the apostles.” And by the time he was old man, he said he was the “chief of sinners.” It was simply because the closer you walk with God, the blacker he saw himself. The more he saw perfection in Christ, the more he saw of the imperfection of his life. It’s not advertising that your life has been touched by the grace of God if you have a high opinion of yourself. That’s right.

2 Corinthians 10:17-18: “But he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. For not he that commendeth himself is approved but whom the Lord commendeth.”

Luke 16:15: “And He said unto them, ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.”

Proverbs 27:2: “Let another man praise thee and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips.”

The old timer that watched them take a poor fellow out and hang him, the old preacher who said, “I would go there if it wasn’t for the grace of God,” he was pretty near the truth. Dear ones, will you let Brother Barnard tell you something? The reason we are going to have the Lord’s Supper, the Lord willing, here every Lord’s Day, if we don’t have anything else, is because this generation of church people have hearts as hard as flint.

Do you know why they have a good opinion of themselves? It is because they do not come often and sit before those elements until Christ is real there, and they see once again their sinful condition was so desperate, their wickedness was so enormous – Oh, their heart was so black – that it took the life laid down and the blood pouring out of the Son of God to keep them out of hell! And that will break the heart of anybody that’s got a heart in him, and it will keep us thinking less of ourselves and more about HIM. That is our greatest need today.

Bible holiness is not negative separation from the world, but it is the opposite of sinfulness; and sin is violation of or lack of conformity to God’s Holy Law. Therefore holiness is obedience to God’s revealed will as expressed in His Holy Law. Did you get it? And the whole Word of the Law is expressed in one word, L-O-V-E, love. And a man is just as holy in practical language as the Law of God is being revealed, honored and magnified in his life. Did you get it? This is a lawless generation. It seems to me that most people who call themselves “preachers” of God’s grace preach this: That God used to be tough and He made it hard to get saved, but He found out that wouldn’t work so under grace He found an easy way to keep people out of hell.

But there is nothing further from the truth than that. The grace of God is God Almighty fixing an old sinner where the righteousness of the Law should be fulfilled in the life of the soul that comes to the Lord Jesus Christ in salvation. Listen to Brother Barnard now. This is a lawless age. I am telling you that you better quit running around here talking about the grace of God, if you are using it so you can disobey God’s truth and disobey God’s will and live disobediently to His holy requirements. I read in the Bible of a sanctifying grace that teaches us how to live. In Titus 2:12-14 we read,

“Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.”

Holiness is obedience to the will of God. Somebody said to me, “What do you teach about giving?” I said, “I teach the grace of giving.”

2 Corinthians 9:7 says, “Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.”

I just tell people you better quit about talking about the grace of God, if it makes you the kind of fellow that is trying to find a shortcut to obedience. You better quite calling yourself a Christian if this isn’t your attitude – you are trying to find out what God wants you to do. You mean to tell me God’s people are trying to find a way to cheat Him? No, not God’s people. You mean to tell me that you call yourself a Christian and adopt a legalistic principle that you honor God by dividing a little income with Him. No. No. I am not going to teach that you have got to be loyal to the Church – I hate that – just loyal to Christ. I am saying it is time we start telling the truth about what the grace of God does for man. It won’t make a lawless rebel out of him; it won’t make people want to find out how little they can do and get by with it!

What is holiness? It is obedience to the will of God as expressed in His Holy Law. Now no one is a Christian who doesn’t have this attitude. I remember years ago two men professed to be saved under my ministry when I was a pastor out in New Mexico. The next week one of them came to see me and said, “I don’t know, what do you want to do? He said, “I want to do what the Lord wants me to do.” So I told him to buy a Bible and see if he could find anything in Scriptures about it. When a person has been touched by the grace of God, and his heart wants to do the will of God, we have no fear to turn him loose with a Bible to see what he can find in there and do it.

What is holiness? Christian profession? No. No. You are the biggest fool this side of hell if you haven’t found out that your best righteousness is filthy rags in God’s sight, according to Isaiah 64:6:

“But we are all as unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities like the wind, have taken us away.”

Ah, that person who thinks he has arrived where he is above sin, he has arrived at it by calling what he does a mistake, instead of sin, and by whittling down the holy character of God. Wait a minute! Most of us are not suffering from claiming we are perfect; most of us are suffering from using the grace of God so we can live selfish lives, and say we are not under the Law but under grace. A preacher said this, “No one is a Christian who does not seek perfection; not to seek to be perfect is to consent to live in sin.” Did you get that? If you don’t want to be perfect, it means you are willing to live in sin.

You mean to tell me that a child of God is willing to live in sin? It can’t be! When you were regenerated, a principle was put in you that made you hate sin with all your heart. And it is a whole lot worse to defend sin than it is to commit it. You may be overtaken in a moment of weakness, but then when you deliberately do like David did and try to cover it up, that’s a whole lot worse, isn’t it? To be willing to live in sin is a certainly that you have never known the grace of God. It is the genuine desire and resolution and endeavor of the child of God to please Christ in all that he does. This generation wants to go to heaven, but they don’t want to obey God! They don’t want to walk with God. Did you get that? My Lord Jesus came down here to change the disposition of sinful men, and make them not only want to escape hell but to walk with the Lord. All that is in the work of my Christ, and let me give you three things that God Almighty gives when He saves a sinner.

First, He gives the gift of the Spirit. Listen to me! It was not simply agreed with the Godhead that Christ Jesus would come down here and die on the cross. But a Covenant was made before the foundation of the world that not only would He die for sinners, but He would purchase for them the gift of saving faith, and that He would purchase for them a gift of saving repentance, and it’s all in Christ Jesus! There isn’t anything on earth that makes my blood boil any more than to constantly hear men and women talk about coming to Christ, and they never honor God by using such simple language as something like this: “Praise God, I was enabled to lay hold of Christ!” That’s the way old time Baptists used to talk. Now they say, “I took Jesus.” They used to say, “I was enabled by the Holy Spirit to turn myself to God, to turn from serving self to lay hold of Christ.” And they ceased not to honor Christ, they gave Him all the glory. I could listen to present-day preaching now and never know there was a Holy Ghost, never know that Almighty was a God of purpose, never know that God had anything to do with salvation!

I long to hear the old language repeated that poor old Rolfe Barnard was laid hold of by the Holy Spirit, arrested by God Almighty, stopped on his mad road to hell, and enabled to repent of his sins and lay hold of Jesus Christ. That’s right. In saving a sinner, Christ purchased the gift of the Spirit.

Romans 10:17: “So faith cometh by hearing and hearing the Word of God.”

But that is not apart from the illuminating work of the Holy Ghost. There will be alot of people in hell who read the Bible and believed every word of it in their heads. That isn’t the way it works. Watch it! Not only did Christ purchase for us the gift of the Holy Spirit to convict us, to regenerate us, to slay the enmity in us, and to make us delight in His Holy Law, but He took upon Himself our curse.

2 Corinthians 5:21: “For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”

He endured the penalty of the righteous law.

In the last place, my Lord Jesus Christ in saving sinners empowers them to walk in holy obedience to the Lord. The only way on earth that Rolfe Barnard ever found out that he was a lost church member was I kept facing the fact that I had no power in here to live for Jesus Christ. I tried to, I taught Sunday School class, I did this, I did that and I did the other. I was constantly brought face to face with the truth that my Lord Jesus Christ came down here not to make a mockery, He didn’t come down here by regeneration to make Rolfe Barnard hate sin and yet do sin and be enslaved and overcome by it every day of his life. He didn’t come down here to regenerate me and plant something in me that longed to be holy, without giving me the power inside whereby practical holiness could be a truth in my life! Bless God, He came down here not to make fun of us, but to liberate us and empower us that the righteous demands of God’s Holy Law might be fulfilled in us, Did you get that?

When I was a student at Southern Seminary, Dr M.E. Dodd came and preached two weeks down there. I was a young preacher then. I remember the story that he told and I want to close with this illustration. Dr. Dodd was hit by an automobile years ago and he had hovered at the brink of death for six or seven weeks. People all over the South were asked to pray for him. When he was over this, he came to preach to us and told us about his experience. He said while he was in the hospital after he came back from the very brink of death, the nurse was gone, and all the visitors were out, the door being half open somebody came and knocked on the door and he said, “Come in.” A little nine- year-old boy with little bunch of violets in his hand, hold them so tightly they already started to wilt, came in. He came up to my bed, “Dr. Dodd” he said, and I could tell he had his speech memorized. He said, “Dr. Dodd, my mother sent me to give you these violets, cause we love you, cause you done so much for us.”

And he said, I took the violets and visited with the little boy a while. I didn’t know who he was but I wouldn’t let him know. I thanked him for the violets and thought about what was behind it. God was good to me, he said, and the little boy’s face came back to me and I remembered the day before I was hit by a car; I was walking down the street of my city and it was zero weather. I heard the little boy say, “Paper mister, paper mister.” And I saw this little boy, his face, his face was blue and his teeth were chattering and he was standing out there with no stockings on, and a shirt but no coat. He just had a little bundle of papers and was about to freeze to death. I went up to him and began to talk to him, and I saw that he was awfully cold. So I bought all his papers and took him by the hand, and he took me home. He took me to a little old shack out behind some of the stores, and there on a straw mat, his mother lay sick with the flu, and a little year-old baby screaming because there was no milk. There wasn’t a fire in the house, all the coal and wood was gone.

There wasn’t a bite to eat or a drop of milk. This widow made a living washing and she had been down for two weeks with the flu and nobody had found it out. So the little boy was out on the street corner trying to sell a few papers to buy them some milk for the baby. He said, “I called up some people and they brought some coal and some cover, and somebody brought the doctor and some brought groceries and we got things all fixed up. So I went on my way, and the next day I went down and dinner with them. The woman was over the flu and there was a fire in the stove, and the little baby was full of milk, and everybody was happy, so I stayed and had dinner with them. We had a glorious time, then I went on my way and that afternoon a car hit me and for weeks I was between heaven and this old earth.” He said, “I had forgotten about it, then that little boy came in and said, “Dr. Dodd, my mother sent me to give you these violets, because we love you, cause you done so much for us.” Then I looked at those violets and I thought of all that was behind it and (he said) I began to weep, and there on my hospital bed I got converted all over again. It kindly helps to, every once in a while.”

And he said, “Lord, Lord, I love you, I love you, I love you…when I was a little 13 year old boy down on an old split rail fence like they used to have in the country, You touched my heart by Your grace and saved me; You call me to preach; You have ministered to me. Lord, I love you; Lord, I love you; Lord I love you.” Then Dr. Dodd said, “Lord all over again, one more time, here is this old broken body of this Baptist preacher. Lord, I want You to have me, cause I love you, because you have done so much for me!”

Anybody that comes into a relationship with the Lord like that, I’ll turn you loose with a Bible to see whatever is in there, and put it in practice. Amen! “Lord, I love you! Lord I love you!

As a text, let’s read John 6:59-61:

“These things said He in the synagogue, as He taught in Capernaum. Many therefore of His disciples, when they heard this, said, This is a hard saying, who can hear it? When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples murmured at it, He said unto them, Does this offend you?”

Does this offend you? Everything my Lord Jesus did when He was here in this world offended somebody — and you know He is still offensive today. He is the rock of offense (Romans 9:33). For instance, His birth in a stable in Bethlehem was offensive. My, my, the Lord of Glory has no business being born in a cow stall! And that is offensive even today! Also, His common heritage offended men. He didn’t come from the high and mighty, and one person upon learning that Jesus was from the little province of Nazareth is quoted as saying, “Can any good thing come out of Galilee?” His death on the cross of Calvary was offensive then and it is offensive now (Galatians 5:11). His second coming is offensive to so many religious people. It was offensive then — and it is offensive today.

And here in our text we find that His preaching greatly offended people of His day. On many occasions when our Lord would speak, the people became so angry that they’d take up stones to stone Him. How then does the modern-day preacher hope to get along with the world and please the unsaved crowd, when they hated the Lord Jesus with such fury that they nailed Him to a cross? My dear friends, the world loves it own — it hates God’s people — it always has and it always will.

Listen to John 15:19,

“If ye were of the world, the world would love its own, but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”

In verse 26, our Lord began preaching to the people. And after He brought this message, the people said as I read in our text, “This is a hard saying, who can hear it?” This is just too much for us! Our Lord met that quibble by asking, “Does this offend you?” And then He brought some more blessed truth (verses 62-65), “and then the crowd of about five thousand men, plus women and children, walked off and left Him. And then my Lord turned to the twelve and said, “Will ye also go away?” The crowd was offended by His Gospel — they stumbled at His Gospel. Everything they clung to was being attacked by His teaching on this occasion. And my friends, the Gospel of God’s sovereign grace — the Gospel of God acting in sovereignty offends people today just as much as it did here in John six. Yes, it offended people then, and it offends people now. It will either drive people to the Saviour, or it will drive them away from Him. The Gospel will either save or it will condemn. But, blessed be God, the preaching of God acting in sovereign grace will always accomplish the purpose whereunto God Almighty has sent it!

Now may we look into this message and see three great foundation truths that our Lord preached at the height of His ministry — and lost His crowd. As you follow me with your open Bible, I call your attention to these truths. Note, first of all:

1. Our Lord Jesus Christ Preached the Sovereignty of God

Listen to John 6:37-38,

“All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me, and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from Heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me.”

My friends, there is sovereignty. There is God’s will being done. There is Christ coming down here appointed and delegated and set apart to accomplish the will of a sovereign God, Who must do and will do that which seemeth good in His own sight! (See Matthew 11:25-27)

Yes, when our Lord was here as God’s Prophet, there is one thing certain: He put God Almighty on the throne in His preaching. It made those people angry, and it does so today. Any time on earth that any preacher anywhere enthrones God Almighty in his preaching, proclaiming the sovereignty which belongs to Him in all things, it will certainly offend the pride of old sinful unregenerated man — I do not care whether he is a church member, or not. Religious or not, if he is unregenerated, the sovereignty of God (just the mention of it!) will offend him. And when a preacher in this modern day dares to stand for the great teaching of God acting as seemeth good in His sight — the Gospel of the glory of God, which is the Gospel of the sovereign grace of God (Exodus 33:19; Romans 9:15-16) — it will be offensive! And today, when we take the crown off the head of sinful man, and put it on the head of a sovereign, holy God, the fur begins to fly, and all hell will break loose!

Men today hate the sovereignty of God and it is offensive to their old proud hearts because it leaves them as paupers before a God Who does as He pleases, when He pleases, and to whom He pleases! But, my friends, God’s will is going to be done in all matters, whether in heaven or in the earth. The Apostle Paul says that God “worketh all things after the counsel of His own will” (Ephesians 1:11). The Apostle James says, “For ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that” (James 4:15). And the Apostle John says, “For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil His will” (Revelation 17:17). And again, the Apostle Paul says, “I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will” (I Corinthians 4:19).

My friends, you and I need desperately to be conformed to the will of God in all things — but the people in my Lord’s time grew angry and were offended because the Lord Jesus demanded that they be conformed to the will of God. They openly rebelled against these demands, exactly as men do today. But, dear ones, God Almighty never has saved a man on man’s terms. God always saves sinners on His own terms! Does this offend you?

There are many within reach of our radio broadcasts who are greatly offended. We hear on every hand that so-called Christian schools are coming out flatly to say that the great doctrines of grace will not be taught in their classrooms! And so such schools are manufacturing young preachers to go out and deny the very things that the Lord Jesus Christ solemnly set His stamp upon when He was here. And one of these truths is that the will of God is done — that man must bow to the will of God — that God does not take man into His counsel as to what He has decided to do — that God is very God, on the throne, and man must bow at His footstool! Does this offend you? The sovereignty of God was very offensive in the days of my Lord here on earth — and it is very offensive now.

Let’s look in this chapter at a second great foundation truth that our Lord preached that day and lost His crowd.

2. Our Lord Jesus Christ Preached the Total Depravity of Man and Man’s Inability

My Lord said in John 6:44,

“No man can come to Me.”

Strange language, but that’s what He said.

“No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him.”

The Scriptures say a little later in this chapter,

“Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is a hard saying, who can hear it?”

You know, my Lord put man down in the gutter of his total depravity, dead in trespasses and sin, depraved and corrupt — and this sort of preaching greatly offended men. My Lord put man in a spiritual grave unable to rise in his own strength. My Lord put man on a cripple’s bed unable to walk. In His preaching, my Lord put man on a blind man’s stool unable to see. And the people of His day were greatly offended — and people today are likewise greatly offended.

I tell you, dear ones, this is no time to be denying these great truths. My Lord taught them and I do not care if every preacher in the country says,“Well, Brother Barnard, they just can’t be preached today.” My Lord preached these truths. “Well,” you say, “Brother Barnard, they offend people.” I know, but my Lord preached them, and surely we would not be ashamed of any great truth that my Lord Jesus Christ preached when He was down here in controversy with religious leaders. HE dared to preach these things.

And I say to you that instead of this being a time to deny these great truths and skirt around them, it’s time we preachers today deserted the modern high-pressure methods of trying to get men into the kingdom of God. And it’s time we went back to the Bible way of Holy Spirit regeneration and Holy Spirit conviction. I say it with shame that most preachers today will say, “Oh, yes, Brother Barnard, I believe that God has elected His people to salvation from before the foundation of the world, and I believe that as we preach the Word the Holy Spirit will effectually call out God’s sheep and I believe that no man can come to the Father except the Holy Spirit draw him.” But saying all this, they’ll turn around and use every high-pressure method known to man to pull countless numbers of poor unregenerated sinners down the aisle during an invitation and duck them beneath the baptismal water.

Thousands of children are being sinned against in our modern-day decision services held in the so-called revival meetings. The Sunday School teacher sits by the little child (I’m describing how it goes on in your church, sister!) — and when the preacher asks who wants to go to Heaven, the Sunday School teacher pushes the little fellow out of the pew and down the aisle. And I say to you, it is a sin against that child who has experienced no Holy Spirit conviction nor repentance, without which there is no salvation.

Let me say it and say it again, that man is a dead depraved child and can no more save himself than a demon in Hell could! The Holy Spirit must quicken him and awaken him and bring him to see his lost condition. Then the Holy Spirit reveals the Lord Jesus to that sinner as his Lord and Saviour. And when this takes place, bless God, you won’t have to pull him down an aisle. He’ll confess openly the Lord Jesus as his Lord and Saviour.

My dear preacher brother, you have never convicted and you have never saved a single sinner and you never will! The Lord God of Heaven is the only Author and the only Executor of salvation.

“Salvation is of the Lord!” (Jonah 2:9)

Oh how men do need to hear the truth about themselves today! The Lord told these people the truth about themselves and it greatly offended them — but the Lord told them! — and they left Him — but the Lord told them! — and they wouldn’t listen to Him anymore — but the Lord told them about their awful condition. So helplessly bound by the cords of their own love of self and their own sinful practices that they couldn’t come to the Lord except the Lord draw them with the cords of His eternal love. Does this offend you? Does this offend you?

And now in John six we come to another great truth that our Lord preached, and when the people heard it they said, “We just can’t take any such teaching as this!” Therefore, “From that time, many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him.” How sad that is! But the Lord didn’t pull His punches. The Lord was telling them the truth and being true to their souls. The Lord was pointing them to the kind of God He really is and the kind of people they were — and now He points them to the true way of salvation. For in the sixth chapter, when people left Him in such numbers,

3. Our Lord Jesus Christ Preached the Blood Atonement

In verse 54,

“Whosoever eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Now, my dear ones, that was an offensive truth then and it is still offensive today. The people in the days of our Lord resented what our modernists refer to as a “slaughterhouse gospel.” These religious people had read in the old Scriptures how that the Christ, the Messiah, was to live and reign forever, how His was a kingdom that could never end, so they could not go along with this idea of the death of the cross and the atoning blood.

How offensive the proclamation of the cross is today! Preach “works” and people will applaud you. Preach “baptism” and you can form your own denomination. Preach “church membership” and you’ll get along fine. Preach “the social religion” — or most anything you want to preach — and people will applaud, but God will be offended. But, my brother, if you preach the cross — proclaim the death of death on that cross — preach it in all of its offense and shame — preach it in its humiliation — preach it in its goriness, its bloodiness — and then preach the cross in its victory. I say to you, then God will applaud, but the people will be offended.

But the Apostle Paul said what we must say, “I’d rather please God than men,” and this is one time we want to say, “Move over, Paul, and let me join you!”

The Lord Jesus Christ proclaimed blood atonement. He said the blood has been shed. It was God’s blood — holy blood — precious blood — it was Divinely sent blood — saving blood — redeeming blood. The blood atonement means the life laid down, it means the offering up of the Lord of glory! And He said this was the only basis on which a Holy God could deal with sinful men. Not upon your goodness, but upon the basis of His life laid down — that’s how God deals with sinners.

My sinner friend, may God speak to your heart today. Don’t join the church members and preachers all over this country who get fighting mad at the Word of God and these great truths we’ve mentioned to you today. How they do scoff at anyone who dares to preach that God Almighty is very God — the God of absolute sovereignty. How they do make fun of anybody who dares to talk about the desperate condition of lostness under which sinners are bound today. And how they do skirt around the awful implications of the death on the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ!

Oh, my sinner friend, don’t join this religious crowd the record of whom is given here in John chapter six. When they heard our Lord preach these blessed truths, they took it out on Him! They said, “We won’t listen to that! We’ll skee-daddle away from here! We’ll go and get us a preacher who will prophesy unto us smooth things!” Don’t you be offended, sinner friend. No, sir! Don’t you do it! It’ll cost you your soul! I tell you the cost of being offended at the truth as it flows from the lips of Christ is to go to Hell. Don’t be offended at the proclamation of the Gospel of God’s sovereign grace! I say to you, there is no other way for a sinner to be saved. I say to you that man is lost, that, man is corrupt, man is vile without one thing to offer God. And, like dear Brother Spurgeon, we like to quote that hymn very often:

“In my hand no price I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling.”

That’s your only hope, sinner! You have nothing to offer. But Christ died, yea, rather Christ is risen again and sitteth on the right hand of God. If you could but believe that He died for you and paid your sin debt and satisfied the Holiness of God for you, you would come to Him in utter surrender. I pray that you can. That old song,

“What can wash away my sins?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus!
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus!

That song is still true — eternally true! And I pray that you won’t be offended at the truth as it is in Christ Jesus, but humble yourself in the sight of God, and cry unto Him for mercy. That is my prayer in the name of Him Who loved us and bought us with His own precious blood, even the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen and Amen.