In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of believing in something and having faith. He talks about the need for people to come together and stand united in their beliefs. The preacher also discusses the concept of love and its connection to the will of God. He emphasizes that the gospel is the power to overcome sin and that true response to the death of Jesus Christ is to die to the old life and seek after the will of God. The preacher challenges the notion that people can go to heaven without obeying God and highlights the importance of walking with God in order to attain salvation.

...find people together, like coming to believe something. Find people to believe something, they'll stick together. That's why we're coming apart, the roots. I've said before, the folks don't believe much in me. I get along with fellas that, that differs what, neurotically, if he believes, what he believes. And the folks that believe in my preaching, they fight for me. And folks that don't want to shoot me, they say, good. But I like it that way. And our deepest need now is, is to believe something. Come to believe something. Folks will stand together and they'll, they'll, they'll stand here to believe something. We need that. I remember the first two years ago, I came to try to explain something of the doctrine of grace to you. This week, we've been trying to exhort you. That's all we've been doing, just exhorting a little. I don't believe we can go on unless we get better or worse. And I want us to get better. The thing that's discouraging for the leader and it's discouraging for the people, the way things are going in most places, by the time I decide everything's on, I'll go somewhere and the Lord will just do a marvelous work. And I'll say, well, he's not there that's all, and I'll try again. Maybe I'll see him work again. By the time I think all the churches about ready to close up out here, won't let the Lord just bless it. I know Brother Sherman was down in the dumps as well. Get on the run for cover. Church all divided and forced into bitterness, you know. Now we're just having tremendous blessing. But this don't happen that way. Somebody's got to stick to the gun. Somebody's got to believe something. Somebody's got to stand for something. And somebody's got to stand when they get, when the flood's flowing in every direction. I don't believe God's going to bless a bunch of cowards. I believe he'll bless people in his own good time, who live for and stand for and are there by for the truth. I wish I could have a part in saying something, doing something, to help to fulfill the dream of this young tenant that God put here, giving him a grasp on the work that very few young preachers have. I want him to be blessed with the Lord and grow a great testimony at this end of birth and for the glory of the Lord. I've done this a long time, and I don't have much reputation to defend. I've been in many meetings that they said were failures. I don't know whether they were or not. Some of the big meetings I may have found out, I guess, and some that I thought weren't very good, they've been pretty good. I just haven't got the interest to know them. I know one thing, that a man's a fool to talk about what kind of meeting he had until about a year has passed, or at least a year has passed before we express ourselves on whether that was a good meeting or not. Don't you believe that? I do. Because this is the day of much spurious growth, but not much stick-to-it-ness, you know. And so far as it sticks, it counts. And not having folks start the way, folks that wind up. Let me talk to you a little tonight about a word that's in bad repute that I wish we'd get the world to believe in it. That's the word holiness. I'm interested in this business of holiness. In the 12th chapter of Hebrews, verse 14, I'm told that without it I can't enjoy my fellowship with God, can't have anything to do with God, unless I know something about this business of holiness. It says, I shall have peace with all, and holiness, apart from which no man shall see the Lord. I'm told that that expression has occurred many times in the New Testament, see the Lord, means enjoy Him, commune with Him, have fellowship with Him. In other words, just bring right down the language we can understand. Apart from holiness, a man and God don't get along together. They just can't have anything to do with one another. No fellowship there is. No enjoyment in a home where one wants to go this way and one wants to go that way, is there? Two business partners, one wants to do this, one wants to do that. And apart from holiness, no man shall enjoy and commune with God. In 2 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 1, God, having done so of these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse in the fear of God, perfecting holiness. Now, Hebrews said follow after it. Follow peace and holiness. Roll up your sleeves and set out after it. And in 2 Corinthians it says that we are to perfect holiness in the fear of God, because we have to do that. And say now, if God goes that far, is this something that we are to do for ourselves? Holiness in the fear of God. And we are to do that by cleansing ourselves. This is not letting God go. This is something for us to do. Cleansing ourselves from our filthiness of the flesh. Perfecting. It's not perfect yet. It's not what it must be yet. Perfect in the fear of God. In the book of Ephesians, chapter 1, we are told, in verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. Father, child of God, experiencing blessing, enjoying the blessing of Almighty God, in the Lord Jesus Christ, he begins to look around and say, where did this blessing come from? How is it that I am so greatly blessed? And having started to look around and see from whence this blessing comes, he looks and he finds it comes from the Lord. And he looks and he finds it came from the Lord who gave it to him on purpose. And that the Lord had a purpose in blessing this particular person. And the child of God reads that he's blessed as he is in the Lord Jesus with all spiritual blessings according to the blueprint. How about following the blueprint according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world was found. That we should be holy and without blame before him in love. And if that means anything, it means that unless God Almighty starts something, he cannot finish. The people who have the blessings of God have them in order that that seed may produce the fruit of holiness, which is the sweet flavor in the nostrils of God. And the man who goes around and says, I'm a child of God and does not bear evidence that God is in the business of making him holy and someday to make him absolutely without blame. That man has hidden himself and he's a disgrace to the doctrine of the elective grace of Almighty God. Holy, holy, follow holiness. Don't make fun of it. Perfect in holiness. Not just self-satisfied, but the fundamentalists that have learned what to think is salvation by grace and what really is the salvation by disgrace. And they use the salvation of Christ as an excuse to live ungodly lives and say they're saved. No, no. Perfecting holiness. Working it. Perfecting. I'm interested in Bible holiness. I'm interested in how I may perfect holiness in the fear of God. I'm interested in whether or not there's any evidence in my life that I'm one of those that God blessed for a purpose to make him holy. If God blessed his wife Barney, it's not to make him happy, although it is. It's to make him holy. It's to make him holy. To make him holy. I was down in a neighboring state in a meeting being entertained in a hotel, and one day going up in the elevator, the colored man who ran the elevator said, Boy, man. He said, are you a preacher? I said, yeah. He said, I thought you were, because I know you're tooting the Bible around against the law, I guess, or anybody else does. And he said, I've been about to ask you a question. I said, well, ask away. He said, go on. He said, in case a man was a Christian, wouldn't something happen to him? I said, oh, well. He said, wouldn't it change him, make him want to do right in that? I said, sure. He said, that's what I thought. A preacher said, some student here in town doesn't been telling me I was a Christian. I said, I know that, because ain't nothing happened in here. This stuff they call salvation by grace now, that's turning out people that are sound as a dollar in their brand of fundamentalism, but they're not hungering and thirsting after righteousness and panting after holiness. I don't want it. I don't want it. Oh, God knows our churches are bursting out at the seams, because instead of invading the devil's territory, the devil's invaded our churches, and he's planted about every one of his creeds and isms right in our midst now, and we're perilous and paralyzed and dying on our feet. We're writing the key on the horse. I read everything I can get my hands on, John Wesley. You ought to buy old journals. Do a lot of meal or two if you have to. Be ashamed for some of you folks. You're thug sales. You never read anything. Read paper or a fool magazine, and you're going to live all your life here and miss some of the great things that you could get out of books. Buy a John Wesley's journal, just a little old book. Oh, I wish somebody would come along now that had power with God, had power with God, but no power much in our churches, and ain't nobody got anything on the ball now. Can't get anywhere without them, can't get anywhere with them. John Wesley, all the churches were against him. The preachers hated him. He couldn't preach far. Had to preach in the chow pasture. I loved to preach in the chow pasture. If me and Wesley had nobody to listen to me, they'd listen to me. And all he preached was what I'm going to try to preach tonight. Salvation. Something happening inside, inside the children. And I'd carry old John Wesley's coattail to somebody like him. I'd tote his Bible for somebody. Not with the method that they use in the day. They're not getting anywhere. We're not getting anywhere. We're just adding some more members to go to hell with the ones we already got. In with holy. Mr. Wesley was telling his journals about his tours, what his little societies were for. He'd say, I struck 30 names off the road that said glory to God. 19 left. One walking orderly turned them out. In with holiness. Whatever this word holiness means, I'm interested in it. The Bible tells me apart from it, I can't see God. The Bible tells me, unless it's a part of my experience, that if I haven't had a crisis that began it, and I'm not in a process now where it's being developed, and I'm not ready for a crisis, I'll be made as holy as God. The Bible says, unless I've had a crisis that gave me holy desires and holy motives, unless I'm in a process of feeling obedience to the revealed will of God, and unless that process has headed me to another crisis, where the flower will come in the rich, full bloom, I'll be like the Lord Jesus Christ. Unless that has taken place, is taking place, and yet shall take place in my life, I'm no part of the Lord Jesus Christ. About all of you and I, how many decisions did you have, and how many additions to the church? But fully on that, what we need now is how many men and women have been converted to walk in holy obedience to the living Lord. I'm interested in this word, Bible holy. I think while we're in our mess, or where I go, they say, now, if we don't have something happen, we're going to have to quit our Sunday night services. Now, Baptist churches, well, most places, they just won't quit. The people don't quit. And I yell on every hand, that we're in a terrible shape, and I believe what I hear. I heard the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta say with tears running down his eyes, I can't see my crowd on Sunday morning, but I can't see them on Sunday night. I know of churches in the Southland, great Baptist churches with thousands of members that can't have a hundred people on Sunday night. And when we call it, we call revival campaigns, that it's common knowledge that unless we put on a show, we mean to expect the majority of our people. The television is more powerful than the pull of the gospel today. And we're coming apart at the feet. Why? Why, God bless your heart, a fellow isn't a Christian, a fellow isn't a Christian that makes a start. This business, brother, involves a start and a walk and a ride they never go. And it ain't the fellow that starts it. These awful days we're living in now, why have our people departed, even in church loyalty, much less Christ's loyalty? They were our promise because they were not. If they'd been of us, they'd still be sticking. While we're at the depths now, why don't we just put our stakes down, roll up our sleeves, and say from now on out, let's bring a message and that will fix it so. If any more people like that get in our churches, they'll do it to stop not the cult of us. For I tell you, the church is powerful as long as it has a testimony. And it's all for when that testimony, God's testimony, of the church of Jesus are holy in the sight of God. Holy Bible, holy. If I could just find out what it is, if I could find out what it is, what does it mean to make us holy? What does it mean to follow holiness? What does it mean perfecting holiness? Now, I don't want to bring the technique of this study in, but I have to say this. I'm familiar with the Greek words here and the scriptures that I've read you here are not talking about, now watch this, are not talking about holiness, that God is talking about holiness. This is practical, everyday, day in and out, holiness of ours. This ain't Christ's righteousness. And brother, you listen to me. My title to him is in the righteousness of Christ. But I'm a fool if I claim to be made a partaker of the righteousness of Christ unless it produces righteousness of my own. And this holiness is talking about mine. This holiness ain't the kind that we practice along on. Oh well, don't look at me. Look at the Lord. Well they can see him. You know what they can see. No, this is, this is the kind of everyday overall type of stuff. This isn't imputed holiness. This is mine. Order in the book of Matthew, my Lord said, except your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees. He wasn't talking about the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is our title to him. And it's our faith. Don't miss it. Away with the kindness, which salvation is. I'm interested in this business of Bible holiness. I think the churches ought to be interested now. I think Bible professors ought to be now. I think Sunday school teachers ought to now. I think that our ignoring of it and our preaching of theoretical is rather sinful. I'm talking about practical daily holiness. Now what is it? According to the Bible, I can't enjoy God without it. I wouldn't be capable of serving him in time and eternity without it. What is it? Well, the best I know, and I have to plow through much writing and much essay, the best I'm able to understand, I believe with all of my heart, that I'm going to give you the truth about what holiness in the Bible is. It is the exact opposite of sinfulness. It is the exact opposite of sinfulness. The purpose of God in salvation is to take sinful men and make them holy, holy men. Do you folks understand what the Bible teaches about that hated word, predestination? Suffer just a word. I'm sure I don't have to explain it to you people, but so many people, they're afraid of it. I wouldn't be afraid of it. It's a Bible term, isn't it? Somebody says, well, I don't believe in harping on it. I don't either. I'd like to tell some of my preacher brothers and I would say, quit harping on prophecy so much. I think they harp. And they say, I harp on this and all. But it's the foundation of all gospel preaching. If you see it, listen to me now, predestination is simply this, that God has fixed it that his people are going to be conformed. It has no reference to who will be saved or who won't. But all of its reference is that the one God saves, when he gets them from saving, they'll be just like the rest. I love that. And if you think that's true, it'll make you do some tall play. Do I have any evidence that a crisis has taken place in my life that's given me at least something to start with, that I want to live life, I've at least got a desire to, that I want to do the will of God, that I couldn't be satisfied not seeking the will of God. And is that experience that we call the new birth that changes us? Does it keep on changing you? Is it getting richer? Do you hate sin more than you used to? Huh? Do you repent more now than you used to? Do you find more in your life now to repent of and cry to God about and beg him to forgive you about than you used to? If you don't, I'm scared about you. I'm scared about you. I think hell's filling up with Baptists that say 20 years ago the Lord saved them. And they ain't repenting none since. I'm scared of that sort of thing. The Lord's people are going to be made like the Lord. Would you let me be almost funny? My Lord's going to have some playmates in glory that like to do the same things he does. Talk about the same things he talks about. Got any scripts yet? He's going to be the firstborn among many brethren. He's going to be just like them. Now I'm silly to go up and down this country preaching this theoretical stuff that they call salvation by faith now. That gets men to look to any other evidence except one as to whether they're saved. Every old Bible preacher, read them, D.H. Carey, all Baptist Bible preachers agreed on one thing and they found it in the Bible. The one unfailing evidence that God can have that he is a child of God. Is daily obedience to what he knows about the will of God. Daily obedience to what I know about the will of God. Bible holy. Now what is sin? Sin is the violation of or lack of conformity to God. The law of almighty God. You agree to that? What Bible says anyhow. Sin's coming to us. Our sin's transgressing the law. So if you want to find out what sin is there ain't some program out there. Never been done. Now watch this. And sin always has been and sin is to sin to the holy law of God. Let's quit preaching that God apologized for the fact that he gave a holy law. And a man is just as much a sin as he transgresses God's law or fails to conform to it. As he does what he says not to and as he fails to do what the law says to do. Now that's what sin is. A man is just as sinful then as he's lost. Would you agree to that? Alright. A man is just as holy himself practically now as he conforms to what? The will of the law of God. Now watch this. In the Bible the holy eternal law of God and the will of God are these things. Man wants to know what God's will is. What God want me to do. That is. How God want me to live. That is. In the thou shalt in the thou shalt not of the word of God's eternal law. Now listen to me. Listen to me. I used to have an old man to speak to. Dear old man. And he'd been reading some books and he thought he'd learn about greats. And so he wouldn't try. And every time I'd talk to him he'd say Brother Barnard I'm not under law. I'm under grace. I said no you ain't. You're under disgrace. And he was. There's never been a time when men haven't been under law and grace. There always have been. There are now. There's never been a way for men to be saved except by grace. And there's never been but once to judge your holiness or your sinfulness. That's the eternal law of God. There's never been but one thing given to show a man his sinfulness. That's to look in the mirror of God's holy requirement. Is that right? Now listen to me. Listen to me. Sinfulness is breaking or failing to keep the commands of the holy law of God. And holiness conforms. Now brother the bestest of this hour you watch them on the Lord's day and wonder why God don't come and wipe us off the face of the earth. Holiness is conformity. Holiness isn't a lot of things I don't do. Holiness is what I do. It's not without a fellow that don't do this and don't do that and don't do that. That's not the fellow that does not see God. It's the fellow that don't obey the parishes. This is holiness. If sinfulness is violation of the law then holiness is full obedience. Do you like it? Full obedience. What do you mean preacher? I mean the obedience of your will to the law of God. Now obedience of the will to the law of God is expressed in one word in the New Testament. And that word is love. Now a fellow has no evidence to be saved if he's tired because he's scared not to. He's scared not to leave the one place. But that's still the slavish business of binding God because he's scared not to. A fellow has no evidence that he's one of God's elect if you want to use that word. For election is unbeholden if he chose us that we should be made whole like him. And without blame. So there is talk about God and there's talk about us. What's the point? Suppose that the I'll keep the law of the whole. I don't know about you but I believe in the Christian faith. I believe that what we call Sunday is that we get absolutely under the law. I believe that anything we do to praise God I will praise him. But then I believe of course we're scared not to. But in the New Testament Obey God. We have a right and a right to do the will of God. As the girl is saying he says He finds his delight in doing the will of God. Foolish. We can't run the church of the living God by making a deal out of it. It's got to be full of men and women who are seeking to know the Lord. And we're right down to brass tacks. Oh foolish! Clash to the will of God so you can know it and walk in it. For apart from that a man's a fool to say he knows anything about fellowship. A man's a fool to talk about knowing God unless that man's engaged and following after the will of God so he may walk in it. A man's a fool to say he's been born again unless his affections and ambitions and desires and directions of concern toward the will of God that he may do the will of God. Now this is holy. He says without it I can't enjoy God. I must perfect it. This is not imputed. This is mine. This is my business. God ain't going to keep the Sabbath day holy for me. God's not going to tithe for me. God's not going to hunger. If I'm one of your children he'll give me that if you go in the direction of your folks' goals. If they like steak they go where there's steak. If they like the will of God they'll go where they find the will of God. Now let me say this. Nobody is a child of God who does not aim at perfecting the will of God. Nobody is a child of God. We've made fun of sinless perfection all in us. Now I don't find anything in the scriptures yet about us getting there. Where is it? It talks about following it. It talks about striving to perfection. Our places of pleasure wouldn't be full of church people tonight if they were people who are utterly un... Now let's reason together just a minute. If I'm... If I'm satisfied to be less than perfect then I'm bound to give my consent. That's gold. There's no way out of it. If I'm satisfied to be less than perfect I'm bound to give my consent. There's just one thing to cross one being perfect isn't there? What is it? If we're all satisfied we're all... There's got to be one way to get out of it. You either long... And New Testament holders full obedience of the will. Now watch it. Full obedience of the will. In other words if I'm safe and I live as I want to live that'd be perfect. If I can't say that I'm lost. Watch it. I don't know whether I've gotten over it to you yet or not. New Testament holiness is F-U-W-L-F-O how powerful. Obedience. One hundred percent obedience of my will to the holy law of God. And some of you don't get every respect of that whole tenfold. I'll be able to live like I want to live. Before I'm going to rise and shine. But to call myself a Christian and be content to engage in that which crucifies the Son of God is downright selfish. Now ladies and gentlemen while the things are busting out why don't we quit playing mumbo-jumbo taking our teaching and the whole business now check it and go telling people the truth about what this business of Christianity is. Why I've got this young people oh my God bless your heart we make fun of hope. And you know I'm telling the truth. We make fun of hope. I'd rather be what we call the whole rope that declares he's above sin. I'd rather be in his shoes at least he recognizes Mr. Mark. But I'd rather be a fellow shooting at it like he is and even bragging about it than a fellow making fun of it. All right you we want a revival. What will revival be? It will be not only If not in the fixed purpose of one's heart one aims at the total abstinence from sin and at being wholly conformed to the will of God he certainly is not one of God's children. Obedience to the will not thoughtless not flawless but special hearted sin it is the genuine desire the resolution and the endeavor of the child of God which pleases God at all times. Now I want to give you a little exercise and I've got to quit if I'm wrong. This generation in the church and out want to go to heaven they don't want to go to hell but they don't want to walk with God and the cry of men and women today right down on us how much sinning can I but I want to get in on all the sinning I can if you don't believe it you follow me around the last two summers we had our large tent and I go around and the people are there the people are working with us and the thing that breaks my heart is the thoughts of the people and the inquiries of the whole trying to find something to give up I want you to tell them you won't have to give up this you won't have to give up that but if they want to go through the hell but they want to hang on to everything in this world I don't want to go too far but I'm depending on you brother Barney I've got a lot of confidence in you tell them that I don't want to die in debt and that's what it is for the people I'm interested in whether it's wrong or right I'm interested in whether it's leading to God or not I just want to know if God won't send me to hell I'm not going to do it but if he'll send me to hell and kill me and I don't want to do it I don't want to go to hell oh my if salvation was salvation for me and the man who thinks he's saved for John the Lamb and the other is his inspiration when he wants to be delivered from sinfulness and delivered unto holiness he wants the barn cut you're the same rock of ages that's for me let me have myself in thee the last line of that verse goes like this do you remember do you sin what kind of a cure do men need a double cure save from what where and do what and that's what salvation is it saves a man from the wrath of God and it makes a man pure that's what it is yes the double cure is in the blood of Christ but the man who believes that Christ paid for his sins and thus there's nothing for man to do there's nothing wrong the man who understands the meaning of the cross says Christ died to pay for my sins his death demands my death to sin that's what it is this easy stuff they call the gospel they say now the Lord's done it all nothing for you but the gospel is the power and the strength that in response to that while Faunus says I die he died for my sins but I die too and nothing short of that is gospel response to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and when a fellow's dead to the old life then he's raised to live the new life and the new life is to live in the newness of the spirit and the newness of the spirit means to seek after the will of God to fully obey him in your heart and in your will why? cause you love him cause you love him now cause you're scared of him now but bless the Lord cause you love him may I ask you this question may I ask you this question you know now this is this is this is something you know about you know you know there ain't no use to be up there about this you know whether or not the supreme objective of your life is to be obedient to the will of the living God you know that you know whether you've got salvation as a theory or whether it's worth it and if it's worth it it's setting your feet in the path of obedience to God help us let us stand