In this sermon, the preacher shares a personal experience of a young girl who approached him and expressed her desire for her father to get saved. The preacher emphasizes the importance of salvation and the burden that comes with it. He highlights the power of Jesus' touch and how it can transform lives. The preacher also reminds the audience that our breath is in God's hands and that He has the power to cut people off if they do not turn to Him for salvation. The sermon concludes with a reminder that we are all dependent on God for our next breath and that salvation is necessary for a fulfilled life.

Tackled by a heavy burden, Needs a load of guilt and shame, Then the hand of Jesus touched me, And now I am no longer the same, He touched me, oh, He touched me, And now the peace that floods my soul, Well, something happened, and now I know, He touched me, and made me whole, Since I met the blessed Savior, Since He cleansed and made me whole, I will never cease to praise Him, I'll sing it while eternity rolls, He touched me, oh, He touched me, And all the joy that fills my soul, Well, something happened, and now I know, He touched me, and made me whole. I come to you over this microphone today to make an announcement. Don't go away. The God of the Bible, not the popular God of the vivid imaginations of this generation of confused men and women, but the God of the Bible, who at the same time is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, kills people. I'm coming to ask you in the next 18 minutes, will God who kills people, who threatens to do so, who plainly announces He will, who evinces His character by His wrath and killing people, cutting them off, will He have to kill you? There are two statements that I'd like to make that nobody can deny now, nobody, wise, acre, or humble. The first statement is this, that this is a day in the once Christian nation of America that now is a pagan society, this is a day of arms, action, hostility to the claims of God for His Son Jesus Christ. This is a day when scientists announce that they believe in God and everybody claps their hands. This is a day when everybody believes in God, but not the God whose character is pictured and outlined and delineated in the Word of God. This generation is dead set against the God of the Bible because God will not resign from His throne, will not abdicate, will not water down His demands nor His claims. This other statement that I wish to make is this, the most alarming fact of our day, your day, you who listen to me now, and my day as I speak to you, the most alarming fact of our day in America is that every time two people in America die these days, one of them dies suddenly. This has become the land of sudden death. Men and women do not bring their children and loved ones about them like Jacob of old, and make disposition of one's property and tell everybody good-bye and turn your face toward the wall and go to sleep with their fathers. But men start out to work and have an accident in a car and wake up in eternity. Men get on a plane and wake up in eternity. Men start to take a bath and wake up in eternity. This is the day of accidental death. Men die now without doing what they fondly said they'd do, take time out to pray. They die with no warning and no chance to pray. Men die today and never get the opportunity to do what they said all the days of our lives. Tomorrow I'm going to repent. But tomorrow comes, and instead of that being the time when you have space given you for repentance, that's the time that you have space given you to die. Men are always going to yield to the claims of God for his Lord, for his Son, Jesus Christ. But one half of the people of America dies suddenly. We call it accidentally. But there are no accidents in the kingdom of God. Nothing happens that takes God by surprise. And there is a verse of Scripture in the Word of God, and hundreds of other verses in God's Word reinforce this verse. There is a verse of Scripture to which your attention is now called that explains exactly what's happening in America, why America is now the land of sudden death. And that verse of Scripture is found in the Old Testament, in the book of Proverbs, the chapter 29, and the verses, verse 1. And it reads like this, He that being often reproved, hardened at his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed. And that's without remedy. What's happening in America, in this nation? That was founded by men and women seeking a place to worship and serve God without compulsion. In this nation, where the gospel's been preached the length and breadth of the land, that this nation that's been smiled on by Almighty God as no other nation since time began, this nation that has been so wonderfully blessed of God and called of God, this nation has departed from the face of our fathers and the God of the Bible and is blowing the smoke of it down like outright rebellion and unbelief in the nostrils of a thrice-holy God. And God is answering that awful rebellious, lawless spirit by cutting men and women off. If you just stop to think of it, you may be one of the people that's going to be suddenly cut off and die suddenly and be hurled out into the hands of a living God for the Bible speaks the truth when it says, It's appointed unto men once to buy it and after that to judgment. Think with me this morning. Don't you go away. Don't you touch that dial. Don't you kick out on me now. I'll meet you at the judgment with this warning from Almighty God. He that be an orphan reprove hardness his neck. You know what's going to happen to him? I'll tell you exactly what's going to happen to him. He's going to be suddenly cut off. He's going to be destroyed. He's going to be ruined in this life and damned in the next. And God's going to do it. And that destruction and that remedy is utterly, and that destruction is utterly without remedy. One out of two people in America dies suddenly. Why? Because America's been rebuked. America's been reproved. You've been reproved by the Holy Spirit to teach us that God does reprove men. I'm not talking about the hot and talking Africa that live way out in the jungle a long ways from the nearest dirt road. Oh no, I'm not talking about the man who spends all the days of his sojourn here on this earth and never hears the name of God or the title of God or the precious name of Jesus. But I'm talking about you here in America where the church on every corner and one in between where the Bible can be bought and on the radio and the television here in America where God's hand has been so blessedly upon us. I'm talking about you. God's reproved you. God has reproved you. He that be an orphan reproved but men meet that reproof by rebelling and hardening themselves. God always has been after sinners and he hadn't quit until this day. He was after sinners in Noah's day. He was warning sinners in the day of Noah. And bless God he warns people that every time you go down on one of these freeways and traffic is stopped because of an accident and there's death. That's what I'm talking about over this radio right now. That didn't happen accidentally. That didn't happen somebody had to telephone God and tell him it took place. There are no accidents in the heart and mind and plan and purpose of God. They begin to stop on their road that leads to destruction before they are plunged by their own sin into the abyss of eternal hell. Thank God God does reprove sinners. I can't save anybody. I can't convince anybody. I can't turn anybody. I know that but God can. And I'm so glad that God kept after me. I'm so glad God didn't give up on me. I'm so glad that He didn't give up on the human race. I'm so glad it seems that more men burn Him and spit at Him and scoff at Him and deny Him and have preachers deny the truth of the Word of God and make fun of the deity of Christ and put the Bible as an old broken junk morality in junk little ten commandments and blow their smoke in the face of God. I'm glad that in spite of that fact God's Holy Spirit and warning them of a judgment and a hell to come, and pointing them to cease relying upon themselves, and to cast all their confidence in the bloody Son of God hanging on a cross. God does reprove sinners, but you know how people in our day meet God's reproof? They harden themselves. He that be an orphan reproved, hardened is his neck. God does the reproving, and man does the hardening. He spits on his hands and rolls up his sleeves, and grits his teeth, and says, God's not going to move me. I wouldn't mind being a church member, and I don't mind being converted, and I don't mind what's called being saved now, but God's not going to change me. God's not going to give me a heart of flesh. God's not going to plant a holy disposition in me. God's not going to start the work of making me like your son. I will not be changed, and I'm just going to fight this business. God thinks he's going to run my life. He's got another thing coming. That's how men talk today. Men harden themselves. They can't be neutral, so they harden themselves. They can't get rid of God, so they harden themselves against the reproof. They say, I'll believe in God, but at night when they go to bed, and they wake up at night and scared, they'll pray to that God they don't believe in to keep them out of hell like I used to do before morning. Men harden themselves. Am I talking to you? Every time God comes and warns you, do your grits, your teeth, and spit in his face, and go on down the road that leads to hell. That's how men talk today. You know, you have to harden yourself to do that. You have to harden yourself to do that. I know in Detroit, Michigan, one morning after I'd brought a message in an evangelistic campaign, the big old tabernacle, I see a lot of people in the pulpit standing mighty high, and I climbed down three little segments of stairs to get down to the bottom floor to shake hands with the people. I was shaking hands with the people, and I felt something tugging at my coattail, and directly I looked down. There was a little two-and-a-half, no, three-and-a-half-year-old girl, curly, plaited sun-haired, beautiful little gift from heaven, and she crawled up into my arms, and when I got her in my arms, she put her little arms around my neck, and in her little old baby way, she began to cry, and she said, Oh, Brother Barnard, I want my daddy to get saved. Oh, Brother Barnard, I want my daddy to get saved. Brother Barnard, I want my daddy to get saved. Now, the little girl didn't know exactly what it meant to say, but she knew that life in her home was hell, and she knew something needed to happen to her daddy, and poor little old heart, she just broke my heart, and directly here came my mother, and she began to sob. She took the little baby out of my arms, and I said to the wife and mother, I said, I'll be on the radio this afternoon, three o'clock there in Detroit, and I said, Your husband cusses, preaches, and he cusses, God, and he's ordered me out of your home, and he's ordered the pass-drivers home, and he never darkened the door of the Assembly of God anywhere, and he brags about how tough he is, but I said, Sometimes he will listen to the radio, and I said, You make it convenient, maybe he'll listen to me this afternoon, and I'm going to preach to him, and that afternoon over that radio, I stopped out in the middle of my sermon, and asked the audience to pardon me, and I said, I believe there's a man listening to the sound of my voice now, and I believe God sent him a last call this morning, and I told over that radio how that little three-and-a-half-year-old girl had come, climbed up to my arm, put her arms around my neck, and cried out, Oh, Brother Barnard, I want my daddy to get saved, I want my daddy to get saved, and I said, I'll be the host of that daddy that little girl is listening now, and I said, You wouldn't listen to God, you haven't listened to any of his threats, you haven't listened to the pleas of your wife and your little child, you haven't listened to anybody, but I sit down here and start talking to you through the tears and heartbreak of your little three-and-a-half-year-old girl, and I said, The spark of manhood in you, get down on your face, and begin to repent of your sin, and cry to God for mercy. You know what he did? He got up and turned that radio off, slammed his hat on his head, opened the door, and cursed me, and cursed the radio, and cursed God, and cursed his wife, and slammed out of there, and went to the nearest honker-talk, and in twenty minutes after he got out of the house, a man had pumped five bullets into his body, and you say, God, don't do something when men harden themselves against sin. You say, That's accidental. No, sir, bless the Lord. He that being often reproved hardens his neck. You know what's going to happen to him? Judgment's coming. God's going to get a hold of him, and he did that man. He kills people who harden themselves against him. The result of hardening yourself on the reproving, convicting, pleading, persuading power and person and presence of God in the Holy Ghost is sudden death. God warns. He said, I kill and I make alive. The Scripture tells us about how God killed and defeated in the days of the flood. Scientists tell us there's maybe as many people living on the earth in the days of the flood as live now, and yet there's three million sold, and you know how many people God sent and sent to hell, killed and sent to hell? God did it. God did it, this God. This God you say you believe in, live like he does not exist. This God that preachers make fun of as holiness. This God who says, I warn you, I kill and I make alive. This God who's the God and father of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know what he did? He wiped off the face of the earth, and there were three billion sold. One fell smooth and sent them all to hell. That's the God of the Bible. That's the God that kills people. Is he going to have to kill you? The Scriptures say you keep on hardening yourself. You're going to get by not on your bottom dollar. No, I warn you, I warn you. God knows what we're telling you how to warn you. God kills people. What kind of people does he kill? People who harden themselves when he calls to them, like those people who listened to no one and didn't pay any attention to him for 120 years, and God wiped them off the face of the earth. God kills people. I was in the city in Oklahoma. I'll not name the town. It's called the richest small town in the world. The pastor came and asked me to hold meetings, and I got there on Sunday morning between Sunday school, you know what that is, and church, we'll call it. Seven deacons of that church came to the pastor and said, Now, brother pastor, we're not going to oppose anything. We just don't believe in this emotionalism. We don't believe in what's called evangelist campaigns, and said we'll just not give back until this preacher's gone and the meetings are over, and the pastor said, Well, I hate to see you take that attitude, but if that's what you want to do, I appreciate you coming and telling me. Well, you know, if they'd have done what they said they would, it would have been all right, but we couldn't get a crowd for a few nights, and we was hitting it pretty hard, and those fellows were glad, and they got to bragging about how we wasn't getting anywhere in the meetings. They violated the word that they wasn't going to oppose us, and the pastor came to me, and he was brokenhearted, and he said, Brother Barney, this is killing me. What can we do? I said, I don't know. Are you game? Let's get down on our knees and ask God to save them or kill them. He said, Yes, I'm game. We got down on our knees and said, Lord, you know what these fellows are doing? They're ruining the meeting and making fun of the gospel and the church and the Lord Jesus Christ and God's preachers. They're just filling the whole town with the town, about 10,000 people. Everybody gets bad news pretty soon, and everybody's talking about how the meeting was no good, no seven deacons, making fun of it, and we said, Lord, save them or kill them. And somehow or another, neither one of us was supposed to tell, and I don't think I did, but somebody did. No deacon heard about it, but they heard just half of it. And so they just tackled, and they had a big time. Said the preachers up there praying for God to kill us, but we weren't praying for God to kill them. We were praying for God to save them or kill them, get them out of the way. They were booking God. They were hardening themselves against God, and I think that's dangerous. And so they just laughed and had a big time. And in four days' time, the pastor had seven different funerals, and there's seven different funerals, but the funerals of those seven Baptist deacons, and never one of them died a horrible, sudden death. God kills people that harden themselves against his claims for Jesus Christ. You better quit making fun of Christ's church and Christ's gospel and Christ's people and Christ's Bible and Christ's spirit. You better quit spitting in the face of the truth of God. For God hardens people. God kills people. God cut people off who hardened themselves against him. You know, I'm going to tell you the day when you're going to be cut off. Acts in the book of the Bible, book of Acts at the 17th chapter and the 28th verse is a statement that's true of the preacher who speaks now, and of everybody that listens to me. The word of God says, For in him we live and move and have our being. You know what that means? That means that the man who's speaking to you now, I'm dependent on God for my next breath. That means you're dependent on God for your next breath. You know, one time God started all over again by sending the flood and wiping everybody off the face of the earth. But he's not going to have to go to all that trouble to cut you off. All God would have to do was just not give you the next breath. That's right. Our breath is in his hands. How does God cut people off? Well, he does it without any remedy. Oh, I'll meet you at the judgment. I'll meet you at the judgment, and you'll hear again my voice. And if you go, you're sent to hell, thank God. I pray that you've heard and that maybe somebody just a little bit scared. I tell you, I don't think it's nice to be sent to hell. But God says the wicked shall be cast into hell. Will you be one of them to surrender to God in Jesus Christ? Amen. I was once far away from the Savior, and as vile as a sinner could be. And I wondered if Christ, the Redeemer, could save a poor sinner like me. There's no hope in that day but for us. For a trusted saving grace. Him for a saving sinner.