In this sermon, the preacher reflects on a powerful experience he had during a Thursday night service. Despite being a well-known preacher, he was unaware of the impact his preaching was having on the congregation. The next night, a singer unintentionally sang in the Spirit, and the Holy Spirit moved in a profound way, touching the hearts of the congregation. The preacher then discusses a passage from the book of Matthew where Jesus pronounces judgment on the Jewish nation and offers an invitation to individuals. He emphasizes the importance of recognizing the love and grace of God and the need for the Holy Spirit to bring truth into the hearts of people.

Thank you so much for this privilege. Will you turn in the Bible to 1 Corinthians, chapter 1. 1 Corinthians, chapter 1. If I can tonight, if the Holy Spirit will help me, give me something to think with, and a heart to feel with, I want to talk on the meaning of the cross. The meaning of the cross. The passage of Scripture that we have before us tonight tells us how that religious people, in the generation when Christ was here on the earth, were scandalized by the message, the content, the truth, the meaning of the cross. Now, the intellectuals represented by the Greeks, the people who thought they knew something, people that wouldn't believe anything except they could understand, they had to reason everything out, the word of the cross, the message of the cross of Christ, the content of the cross of Christ, was to them foolishness. But unto some people it was the power of God and the wisdom of God. No greater tragedy to be experienced by any human being than to live his life's span down here on the earth and not face the cross of Christ until its wondrous meaning, that which God meant it to be, should be true of you. You miss out here? You missed out on everything. God has no other remedy. This is it. We do not need a Bible to tell us that there's a man named Jesus who lived in the little country of Nazareth, and that he died on a tree outside the city of Jerusalem. Any history book can tell you that. But we do need a Bible to tell us who he was, who he is, and why he hung on that cross. So these thirty-six years I've been hiking up and down the country, I've determined one thing will be as narrow as the Bible. I never shall forget the old white-haired preacher that preached the sermon when I was ordained. A lot of what he said I didn't have the least idea what he was talking about. He said, called me by my given name, and he said, there'll be nights when you'll walk the floor, and you'll cry, and you'll pray, and you'll look up, and everything will be as brass, and you'll want to die. And I had no idea what he was talking about. If I'd known what it was getting into, I wouldn't have had the courage to do it. None of us would. Is that right? The Lord's good to us. But one thing he said stuck in my cross, always be as narrow as the Bible. If the Bible says hell, you say hell. If the Bible says the cross, that bloody offering, you stick with it. Just be as narrow as the Bible. That's the only thing that's going to endure, as always in the heart of God, the cross of Christ. Every clan of men will go by the board, but people who face the cross experience the power of him who hung there. Bless God. Satan can never destroy that. Was the subject the meaning of the cross before us? Let's read beginning with verse 17. Paul says, For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not to preach it with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the word of the cross, the message of the cross, the content of the cross, is to them to perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. And here's some language that, if you listen to it one more time, you'd be persuaded to pick up your ears. This message of the cross, and to experience the power of the cross, you might miss out on it. For up to now, God, doing the very best that he has chosen to do, has never been able to stay God and save any saver remnant. He never had the message. You look that in the face and start to contemplate. Decades go into centuries and centuries into millenniums and millenniums on into the changing tides, and billions of people have lived in God's world. And if this Bible shows, the masses in every generation have missed out on the meaning of Christ hanging on the cross. I look you in the face tonight and say for myself and for you, I covet that you'll come to experience the power of and the meaning of the cross of Jesus Christ. To some it's foolishness, to some it's power. Now listen to this strange language, for it is written that Satan, in the Old Testament it is written that God's word, God says, I'll destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing, to nothing, the understanding of the proof. God says, I'll do that. Then he asks, where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For after that, in the wisdom of God, God planned this now. This is solemn. This awful call of death, and everybody seems like they're asleep. Satan's got the world cocained and drugged. So you'd better get that wax out of your ears. As we tried to preach last night, save yourselves from this untoward, godless generation. For after that, the wisdom of God, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God. And all of my reading, I never found anything more startling, more challenging, than this statement we're going to read now. You'll never get to God just using this, just using this. You'll read now 2 and 2, 4 and go to hell. It pleased God. It's according to the purpose of God. God fixed it that way, all hell can't change it. Anybody on God's earth who claims to be a preacher or a Christian don't get excited about this, and let the devil lead him to use any other message, any other message. Not worthy of the kingdom of God. It pleased God. God loves sinners more than we do. God's wiser than we are. God's more tenderhearted than we are. All this generation of people advising God and attacking his character, and they don't like what his Bible has to say. Then all of us put together don't love lost sinners as much as the God who gave his son. But it pleased that God. Brother, we better be pleased by it. If we, if I myself and just one more in all this world, discard the cross and think that we can get the job done by preaching anything else, we better not. For this pleased God. This was according to the purpose of God. All hell can't shake God in that purpose. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Never will be. Never has been any other way. God put all his eggs in one basket. This is it, my beloved. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Somebody says that don't mean foolish preaching. But now if you, if I don't lose you, it is foolishness if you just use this thing. There isn't a human being here tonight, if you'd be honest. You wouldn't have to admit that the idea that a little baby that was born in a cow stable in a little insignificant country, way off from everywhere else, and lived in Nazareth, and nothing ever good ever came out of Nazareth, and nobody that was anybody ever became his follower. Only fallen women and tax collectors, thieves and fishermen, poor folks like that, became his disciples. The religious people looked him over and turned and died. He wound up dying the death of a criminal, the most horrible death that the Roman Empire could think about. They put him in another man's grave. They wrapped his body in somebody else's clothing. They perfumed his body with gifts of spice from somebody else. That ain't foolish to say that God Almighty, that God Almighty, that God Almighty in all of his wisdom, in all of his eternal goodness, God Almighty has put all of his eggs in that little bastard. And he not only invites and asks, but he commands that men and women believe that that was his only forgotten son, and that he was acting in good faith. And he commands every man and woman to lay themselves at his feet in absolute day-by-day utter devotion and surrender. That's the most foolish thing I've ever heard of in my life, or it's the truth of God. And I'm going to look you in the face now and tell you you're living in a generation where everybody believes the Bible. Makes us wonder if anybody does. And you're living in a generation now where everybody's a Christian. It's a good question whether anybody is. We take for granted and never just swallow it down, and we'll never know when we'll swallow it and never know when we'll lose it. Why, my soul, listen, no human being in his right mind, listen to Brother Barney, no human being in his right mind could possibly believe that this one I've described is the eternal God of glory, except the Spirit of God gives you a birth from him. You see, that which God intended should be absolutely impossible for anybody to believe apart from the Holy Ghost. We've reasoned it out now the way everybody says they believe it. But if you believe this, it'll change. It'll change. But you can't believe this apart from a miracle. Brother Barney, that's terrible. You mean I can't get saved apart from God working a miracle in my life? You dead sure can't. That's exactly what it means to be born from above, to receive life from Almighty God. Oh, how solemn it is! It pleased God. This is God's way. It pleased God. By that foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Why did God choose that way, he says? For the Jews, that's religious people, require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. And God will not cater to either. He'll not give the sign, nor he'll not cater to wisdom. Oh, I want you to keep your finger on that and turn with me to Matthew 11. And I just want to read a passage of scripture here. And if I could understand it, I'd be ten million times smarter than I am. I don't pretend to understand it. I just bow to it. And I'm going to ask you to take the time as we look at it here in connection to what we've been reading. What's it talking about, Brother Barnum? I don't want you people to miss Christ. When I go and have big crowds, I rejoice. When I haven't had crowds like we haven't had here, it just makes me say, Oh, God, please don't let any of the people who stayed for the stuff, don't let them go to hell. I don't want anybody to go to hell, but I tell you, I'd hate for somebody to sin and sin, trying to stay with Christ's church. I'd hate for you to go to hell. I don't want anything you've got but a covetousness of Christ. But I'm telling you, everybody believes now. But the Scriptures say, whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. There isn't a way to get born of God. It happens just like that. But you have to both be born of God in order to be able to believe. That little baby over there is the Son of God. Why, you've got more sense than that, haven't you? He couldn't be the Son of God. That's what the Jews stumble at. They say, He couldn't be! And the intellectuals, the college professors say, He couldn't be! Well, that's silly! And it's silly! And it's a scandal! Well, apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, when will we ever quit using it as a doctrine and go to believing that the natural man receiving it, not the things of the Spirit, have to be interpreted to him by the Holy Ghost? The Apostle Peter preached on the day of Pentecost to the very people who stood and watched the crucifixion. But the Holy Spirit had to interpret what actually happened there. And you dear preachers, brethren, you can preach till you're blue in the face. But God's helpless preachers, we're as helpless as we can be. We cannot get truth into the hearts of men. The Holy Ghost has to do it. I want to read you this past scripture in connection with what we're talking about. In the 11th chapter of Matthew, Jesus Christ turns in chapter 20 and pronounces judgment on the Jewish nation who through their leaders had looked him over and rejected him. And in a moment he's going to give the first invitation in the scripture to individuals. And he talks about judgment. For instance, Capernaum is going to be brought down, Tyre and Sidon, and Chorazin and Bethsaida, and Capernaum, the cities of his day, are going to come to judgment. In verse 24 he says, I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee. Now, here is the very strange language. And at that time, Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father. Isn't this strange prayer? Don't you laugh at this. Don't you get mad about this. This is too deep for me. It makes me tremble, the familiarity people have today. This group of church people are very familiar with Jesus. Familiarity with Christ proves one thing. You don't know him. You don't know him. He says, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth. What you thank in the Father about, Lord, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent. Brother, they have been sweet of you. And this one might come over from Saudi Arabia. You've got sense enough to look into this. You know why the Jewish nation, you know why they rejected the Lord Jesus. They were responsible for it. But back of it was the action of Almighty God. He says so here. Jesus told the Father, and he thanked him, that he hid these things from that bunch of puffed up people. He did it. So they blinded bats and crucified the Lord of glory in their willful ignorance. You live in a generation of people as blind as they were. Be careful you don't crucify them too. Oh, how solemn scripture like this is. I thank thee. He died on his knees. My Lord Jesus Christ did. And he just pronounced judgment on that nation, and now he's thanking the Father that God hid the things of God from them. Then read the rest of the verse. Because thou hast hid these things from the wise and the prudent, and hath revealed them unto thee. Yea, that's the reason the prostitutes and the tax collectors and the drunkards and all that crowd press in, leave the religious folks to go on to hell. You better watch out, my friends. And this is still the day when men trying to get to heaven by way of religion and by what they know in their head, have pleased God to bypass both of them and to hide the things of the spirit from people who go to reason things out and reveal the things of God to little bitty babies. That's reading the Lord Jesus Christ said, except ye become converted and become as a little child, you'll never make it. The characteristic of a little child, it believes what it's told. And as long as you're trying to reason it out and work it all out yourself, you're just stepping on the road to hell. God hides the things of the spirit from that crowd, and he reveals them to little bitty babies. I hope you'll get to be a little bitty baby, just believing what God says, just looking up into his face through the word and receiving the dewdrops from him. And then the next verse makes it a little deeper. But what the Lord prayed, he said, even so, Father, for so it seemed good. You know, I wouldn't want you to go away and misunderstand what I'm going to say now. That almost sounds like the Lord Jesus Christ and his humanity. He had to join poor Brother Barnum and say, Lord, I don't understand this either, Father, but it's all right. Even so, for it seemed good in thy sight. You mean to tell me all the religious people to which the cross of Christ is scandalous, if they think it vulgar and they don't like to talk about it? Yes, it pleased God to hide the things of God from them. You mean to tell me the people who think they're all so smart, just a smart attitude generation, you know, know just enough to make fools of ourselves? You mean to tell me that it pleased God to hide the things of the Spirit from them? I don't hide it from them, Doctor. It pleased God to reveal the things of God to babies. And Jesus said, that's all right, Father. Thank you. Thank you. Even so, for so it seemed that it's good in thy sight. You can pretty soon find out who's saved in the church if you regard your watching. Let something happen that you don't like, or you can't understand, you'll go to rave on with God. Jesus said, I don't quite understand it in the humanity. He limited himself, I reckon. But he said it, you did, Father, and it's good in your sight. It's good in your sight, says the Lord. One thing the scripture said about old Job, he did not rave on God. He just said, Blessed be the name of the Lord. The Lord give us and the Lord take it away. Help us if we can do that. The Jews require a sign. Ain't going to get it. God will just close up. The Greeks, he got to wear them. Ain't going to make it to God that way. The Lord will just by passion. What are we going to do? Preach Christ crucified. Of course, we know it's going to make religious people mad. It's a scandal. Tell them! People trusting in themselves that they are righteous. And unto the Jews, it's going to be a bunch of foolishness. But unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God. And the wisdom of God. At the cross, if I look at it like a little baby, I try to reason it out. Not clutching my fist and holding up the face of God now. Not being so blasphemous as so many people are now offering God so much advice. But just as a little baby, I try to look at it. And I see Satan in action. He's behind that mob. I see men in action. Our kinfolks were wicked hands. Took him and nailed him to a tree. But I see God in action. If I couldn't explain the meaning of it, I'd left the preach long enough to get to where I could at least quote it. Until the very quoting of it would break my whole heart. And the heart of everybody that hears me preach. Isaiah says in Isaiah 53, It pleads God to bruise him. I wish we weren't so smart as we are. I wish we weren't so religious, bragged about all the good things we do. Oh, I wish the wonder of that verse. It pleads God to bruise Jesus first. If your heart were as hard as steel, it'd break your heart. I hope I don't go through this life so hard-boiled, smart-ass. But that isn't the most wonderful thing. God was pleased. It was part of his purpose. It was in his plan. He did it on purpose. Men were responsible, but back to their actions, they can't get away from God. Why did Jesus Christ hang on the cross? Because of Satan's malice. Why did he hang on the cross? Because of the wickedness of my kinfolks, of me. Why did Christ hang on the cross? Because it pleased God to bruise him. Oh, you argue about the love of God, and you blow in the face. There it is. It pleased God to bruise him. I wish I could be a little like a little child once again, and drink deep at the meaning, and experience the power of the Christ forever on the cross in the heart of God. I try to look at it, and if you spend a lifetime, it takes you that long for the cross to mean this to you, it'd be a life well spent. I look at Christ hanging on the cross, and I see first that the world's all wrong. It always has been, my friend. Since the time that every human being in old Adam doubled up our fist and tried to push God off the throne, this world's been all wrong. And when in due time God was manifest in the flesh and came so men could handle him, Oh, isn't that wonderful? God was manifest in the flesh, and men handled him. One man put his hand in his side. God came down where men could get their hands on him, and touch him, and carry him. Oh, God help you if that don't kill you still. And you know what this world did to us. They spat on us. And they brought out a fellow named Barabbas, a rebel. And old Pilate said, I'll give you folks a choice. This is a big feast day, and I'm going to release a notable prisoner. Whom will ye that I release unto you? And old E.G. Parks and Ralph Martin brought about the release of the after-revelation. Crucified Christ, and that's still the world's Christ. They made the wrong choice. They end up making them everything. The world's all wrong. This world's all wrong. The stain of it's wrong. The thing that makes it's tick wrong. It's anti-God. It's anti-Christ. It's anti-wholeness. It's anti-everything. Don't tell me that you're saved, unless in spirit you're separated from the very evil spirit of this godless age. Looked at the cross like a little baby, and you'll see that you're a lost sinner, obnoxious to the judgment of God and eternally. Ah, he hung there on that cross for some reason. The Bible says he hung there for some reason. That God might be just, and to justify them that are ungodly. And that God Almighty made him. I couldn't understand this for a million years. Made him to be sin for us. Nor that we should be made the righteousness of God in him. Those scriptures you spend a million years drinking of them. God knows don't ever lose the thrill of them. The wonder of what God. I'm lost. I'm lost. I believe hell is nothing more or less than a place where men and women have to pay the severe penalty of God Almighty's holy law. And I believe that without a mediator, and without a substitute, that substitute be all God and all man. I believe that unless by faith, not simply that you stand up and say I believe something about him. But I believe that unless by faith you are vitally united to him, so he and you are one and Christ lives in you. I believe you'll have to endure the awful penalty of God's severe law. And that'll be hell. Oh, this Bible tells us that to read in Christ hung on a cross was to be a substitute for somebody. I want in on that cross. I want in on that cross. The meaning of the cross the world's on. You better turn your back on it. You better quit claiming to be a Christian if you head over heels in love with the spirit of this age. I'm talking straight to you. Christ came to deliver us from this present evil age. And any salvation that leaves you in bondage to the onions and the leek and the garlic of Egypt is no salvation at all. Listen to me. Because the cross means that men and women are lost. And the law of God must be established and fulfilled. And the best man that ever lived will have to go to hell to suffer the awful penalty of God's holy law. Unless he's vitally joined to the perfect substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. There at the cross, I learned something. It's like a little baby. I'll not try to read it out or just leave what God says about it. That's what faith is. God said it. Okay, that's sold. Here I go. I learned the cross with my redemption. Blessed Redeemer. I thought that as they were singing the night, nothing was said about it. A lot of times fool song leaders would come up to me and say, Brother Barnum, you got any special songs tonight that will catch your message? I always turned it aside. There in the spirit, it'll come along. But tonight, that was all arranged. Precious Redeemer. Up Calvary's mountain. You one of these religious people, I don't mean anything to you. No hope for you either. You one of these smart alecks, I foolishness to you. Ain't foolishness to people who are being saved. Up Calvary's mountain. The cost of my redemption. My God, my God, what? And the answer comes back, Thou art holy. He hath manner to bind thee into the marketplace, men and women, so that thou could be judged in turning them loose from the touches of the holy law. You can argue about the atonement and how many Christ died for and all that to you. Blurring the faith. Why are you arguing at it? I'm just going to be holding on to the cross. He died for somebody. And I say, Lord, let me in if you will. The cost of my redemption was the separation of the Lord Jesus Christ for a while. From the very presence. Like a little baby, if I could be so smart and so religious. They're all going to hell, the wise acres. They'll bypass the cross, they'll say it's silly. The religious people say, I don't understand, I'm all right. They're going home to hell. They'll bypass the cross, only little babies. Only little babies are going to get this revelation, brother. And the reason I know if you are saved, something happens to you. You're saved not by your decision. Your decision is fine in its proper place. But if you're saved, it's when the Spirit of God makes Jesus real to you. Brother, what the Spirit does, he makes Christ real to you. There ain't enough devils out of hell to undo that. That's right. If it's all something you did, well, maybe you could undo what you did. But salvation ain't what you do. God bless your heart. It's Christ being made real inside by the Spirit of God. And I say that at the cross, like a little baby, looking up at the face of God. I ain't trying to argue with him. I'm not. Oh, if I get from above and I find that God loves me. When I was a kid of a boy, we too nice and religious and dignified. Sing it now, we used to sing. The Bible tells me so. He didn't hang on that cross to get God in a good humor. God loves me. You can try to explain what you want to while you explain it. I'm just going to be rejoicing in it. Oh, there it is. Like a little baby, I'll pray now. God loves me. Like every great thing from God now, we preachers long in our hearts. To live long enough to see the wonder of the grace of God and the love of God and the mercy of God in Christ. That it would cause us to be amazed and wonder. We take everything for granted now. I go up and down this country and I see professing Christians just raving and caving and fighting over some doctrine. And I look you in the face and tell you there's not a person here tonight knows enough about any doctrine to fuss much. We just, like little children, we say, Lord, we understand in part who God will believe if I don't believe. I wish we'd cut out all this music. That's the gospel. And I wish, like little children, we could sing once again, I can't explain it, but Jesus loves me. Wonder, wonder. I got off the train in Illinois City years ago. I had the flu. I closed the meeting on Sunday night in Statesville, North Carolina. I went home, had to service to Winston, 50 miles. The next day at 2 o'clock I got on the train. I had the flu. I was going to the doctor. He was pumping me full of dope and hypo's and pills. I had to go start a meeting in Illinois on Tuesday night, sick as I was. Yeah, I went. By the time I got there at noon on Tuesday, I was a sick boy. And the pastor met me, and he could tell I was very sick. He took me quickly to the room, called the doctor, and he stuck some needles in me and pumped me up. And I got up that night, preached a little bit. I was pretty sick. I couldn't preach much. But the pastor said, Now, Brother Barnard, I have to apologize. I had some sort of duke flop me up at the school, and my folks mostly would be up there. You know, this gang of church members. They'd be anywhere except the house of God, if they had the slightest excuse. He said, Some of them start trickling back Wednesday night. So Tuesday night I got up and spluttered around a little bit. I was sick. I couldn't preach much. And soon as the benediction was pronounced, the chairman of the board of deacons, he high-tailed it to the front and come in cussing me. I skedaddled out the back and went and got in bed. Put the cover up over my head and tried to sweat some of that flu out. I didn't know what was going on. And they said later that he just, Whoa! He said, That man's a false prophet. He said, He's going to tear our church up. And when the pastor got there, he said, I'll write a check for $400. You give it to that preacher. Send him on back to North Carolina. He said, Don't let him preach again. They didn't tell me anything about it. That'll keep. Wednesday night I went back and preached again, and I was still sick. And I found out that later when it all came out that the pastor had gone to see the doctor and tried to talk him into coming down and saying I was absolutely unable to preach. They'd handle it that way, but the doctor wouldn't do it. And so I got up and preached that night. I preached a little better than I did Tuesday night, but still didn't have much on the ball. And when I got through, the pastor said, I'm going to need the deacons down in the basement. And I went on home. I was sick. I didn't know what was going on. And they told me later he just walked the floor and ran his hands. He's a good man. He said, That man's going to tear our church up. What on God's earth are we going to do? And all the deacons said, That's right, brother pastor. We've got to get rid of him until he came to one old white-haired deacon. And they said, What about it, brother? And he said, Better leave him alone. He said, He's preaching the gospel, and you've never heard it. Better leave him alone. And he scared them. I still didn't know a thing about it. Thursday night, the house was packed and jammed. I thought because I was such a big preacher, I still didn't know what was going on. That news had spread all over town. They came down to see who was going to get killed. And I preached Thursday night. And I went home. Friday night, couldn't see them. Saturday night, they had a fellow sing a solo. And he didn't mean to do it. But the Holy Spirit took charge. And he sang in the Spirit. And he never did get but the first line of the song through. That congregation was melted by God. He began to sing, And love sent my Savior to die on a tree. Why should he love me? And the Holy Spirit took the wonder of the love of God, the wonder of the grace and the cross, and interpreted it to that congregation. The organist began to sob and then she began to scream, And love! And love. She ran to the prayer room. The second person began to scream, that is the pastor. I never preached that night. The pastor got saved. The wife of the organist got saved. The chairman of the board of deacons got saved. Seven more of the deacons got saved. Thirteen Roman Catholics got saved. Never got to preach. What happened? After a week of preaching, the Holy Spirit was pleased to interpret Christ's own cross to that congregation. That's always our hope. That's always our prayer. Brother, you think you can read it out yourself. Keep listening to this stuff. That's all up to you. You'll miss out on this. You better be crying into your heart. For the Lord's God to grant you the mind of a baby and the heart of a baby, and enable you just to believe what God says. We cry for the Holy Spirit to take the truth that religious people say is scandalous, educated people say it's foolish, and make it the power and wisdom of God. So many women, sometimes we see it happen. They think we've seen it this week. I say that because we cry to God that the blessed Holy Spirit shall take the things of Christ and make them real. Amen? Will you bow your head? Our Father, this last night, not that this is the wind-up of everything, but it's the wind-up of our ministry here. We have no promise of tomorrow. We may never see each other again. We're shut up. I bring this congregation of people to you and pray in thy wisdom, thy love. Oh, if it pleases you, every person here, a stranger to Jesus Christ, make him real to them tonight. Do it for his name's sake that once again he may look at the travail of his soul and be awful glad that he died on a cruel cross. We ask this, if it pleases you, in his dear, blessed name, for his sake. Amen.