In this sermon, the preacher discusses the responsibility placed on Jesus Christ to save his own and judge everyone else. He emphasizes the importance of demonstrating the power of God rather than just talking about it, drawing a parallel to the effectiveness of television advertisements. The preacher also shares a personal anecdote about trying to convince his wife to buy products based on their demonstrations, but finding that they didn't live up to their claims. He then explains that the gospel becomes good news when one realizes that they have a new master in Jesus Christ. The sermon concludes with the preacher highlighting the absolute rule of Jesus over every aspect of our lives and the recognition of his work on the cross by God.

Would you open the Bible to the book of John's Gospel at chapter 18. And while you turn, the pastor made a request, just a request, that I bring the message tonight, or today sometimes, on how the Lord saved me from infidelity. I organized an infidel club in the Southern Baptist College. Had over 300 young Baptists join my club. I was the president of it. I found out it's a lot easier to lead men to hell than it is to Christ. And I, God showed mercy to this infidel. I'd like for us to think a little while tonight about what infidelity is. Somebody said there are no atheists in foxholes. There are no atheists anywhere. Everybody believes as a supreme being, you're a human being. But there are infidels, and they're in our pulpits, teaching our Sunday school classes, gracing our pews. Infidel is a fellow that says, I know there's a God, but he's not going to run my life. No God for me. And to be honest with you, that's what churches are manufacturing now. People who with their lips claim Jesus as Savior, that have built a fence about their life, and told God to stay out. Hell's going to be so full of Baptist preachers and Baptist deacons and Baptist Sunday school teachers that it'll be running over. For they profess with their mouths, but with their hearts do not know the living Lord and the Lord of life. Now I hope the Lord will not hurt in the service system. Now let me hurt you. It's a little difficult to listen to me because I am a hitchhiker. I go from place to place. And usually it takes people a week to know what I'm talking about. And you can't get much out of a message unless you've heard me a few times. Because whether I'm right or wrong, I've been crossing the grain of our Baptist so-called doctrine. I'm inside now, not on the outside. I am a Baptist. But we Baptists have been filling hell full of church members, and I've been screaming against it. Now I hope that you can hear me this morning. There are three questions that deserve an answer. First they ought to be asked, and then they ought to be answered. I'm aware of the fact that nobody is asking these questions now, but I pose them for you anyhow. The most important question you'll ever ask, if you ever get around to it, is who is Jesus? Who is Jesus? Now everybody in the world today got some opinion about who Jesus is. But unless you come up by revelation with God's answer, you'll split hell wide open. Richard Naber, one of the prophetic voices of this hour, quotes from one of the Russian... I can't pronounce that word, D-O-E-S-T-O-B-S-K-Y One of his novels, in which this Russian tells the table, of course, of a man who walked for a thousand years to get one look at Jesus. And then he walked a thousand years back home. And when he got back home after the 2,000-year interval of walking, somebody said, was it worth it? And he said, yes, it was worth it. That almost breaks your heart when you remember that we as Baptists made salvation by man's decision instead of God revealing of Christ some 40 years ago. And that this generation is a total stranger to the Christ of the Bible. And if you have any of the milk of human kindness, much less a little drop of the grace of God within you, you wish you could put your arms around this generation of church people and get them to take time to get just one look at the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. But I don't guess you've got time while the preachers will get you to make a decision and they'll bury you and they'll send you to hell because you're so busy you'll never have Christ. All of his glory made real to you. That's salvation. The second most important question you'll ever face, you'll ever find out who Jesus is, wouldn't do any good to trust him unless he's the Jesus of the Bible, would it? And the Jesus of the Bible and the Jesus of our church circles, not the same. The second most important question you'll ever face, and I hope you'll ask it someday, don't expect you've got time, most folks are too busy to go to heaven, is what did Jesus do on that cross? And what's he doing now on that throne that'll do you any good anyhow? Did he do anything that you need to be done in your behalf while he hung on that tree outside the city of Jerusalem that'll help you? You need anybody do anything for you on a tree shed his blood? Most folks don't. They say I'm as good as the church people, that ain't nothing to brag about. But they're not interested in whether Jesus did anything on the cross or not. They just don't care. You think I'm wrong, you go out on the streets, I looked for 15 minutes for it this morning, I haven't found it yet. It's really not a little late. I don't know where Benedict is. The preacher said this outfit here was invented, but I don't know about that. I'm going to investigate after church. And I wonder, wonder what Jesus is doing now seated at the right hand of the majesty on high. Why is he doing anything now that'll do you any good? You could get an interest in it. And the third most important question that anybody will ever ask, I doubt if you'll ever ask it, and come up with the right answer, is what does it mean to be vitally united to this Jesus who did something on a tree outside the city of Jerusalem, and the Bible says he's doing something now at the right hand of God's majesty on high. Reckon you need any of that? The old Mother Hubbard of the English language now is S-A-V-E-D saved. It doesn't mean a thing on God's earth to the average person. This morning will you let me, I'm going to let me nod, but will you try to hear me as I speak to you on the second of these three questions. I do it because I hope that you're not a Sunday morning outfit and that you'll do what your beloved young pastor has urged. Try to get a hearing for the message. The Lord has saved many thousands of people as I brought the message I'll bring tonight. He may not save anybody. He's running it, you know. But I wish you could get them to hear me. And I hope this message will help you hear me tonight. Why did Jesus die on a cross and God raise him from the dead? Now, the only Jesus we have any record at all of is a Jesus who was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died on a tree, was buried in another man's tomb, but didn't stay there. God raised him from the dead and exalted him, made him prime minister, totalitarian dictator, absolute despot of everything that thrives and reigns. Now, that's the only Jesus we've got any record of at all. That's seminary professors and I'm a graduate of one of them. By the way, I'm going to get to be on a conference in Arkansas where Dr. Pinnock, he's the fellow that's been stirring us Baptists up, so I'm looking forward to that, and Dr. Vaughan of Southwestern and Dr. Havlick of the Home Mission Board and Dr. Millican of the Southern Baptist College in Arkansas. And you won't believe it, Curtis, it's the Sovereign Grace Conference. And one half of the Southern Baptist Preachers of Arkansas to be the invited guests. I'm looking forward to that. I tried to straighten out seminary professors thirty-five, sixty, forty years ago, but they wouldn't listen to me. But I'm going to have time with them. Well, I won't charge anything extra for that. I know that people have invented a Jesus, but the only record we've got of them is in the minds of those who believe in Jesus. We've got any kind of evidence that ever existed is the Jesus this book talks about. Now, what did He do? And why did He do it on the cross? And what's He doing now? And what good would it do anyhow? In the 18th chapter of the Gospel of John, the Lord Jesus, just before His crucifixion, is before the Roman governor of the Jews, a fellow by the name of Pilate. And I just ask you to look at verse 37 of this 18th chapter of John. This is not my text, but it will prepare you for the text. Pilate, that's the Roman governor, therefore, said unto him, that's the Lord Jesus. Art thou a king then? Remember, Pilate didn't know who he was talking to. Pilate said, Are you a king? They claimed to be. And Jesus answered, Thou seest that I am a king. Now, watch it carefully. But to this end, for this purpose was I born. And for this cause came I into the world. I was born to be a king. And that's the reason I came into the world. Now, language couldn't be any plainer than that. That I should bear witness unto the truth. And the Lord, when he was here as God's prophet, explained his death and demonstrated his kingship. He'd speak to the way, he'd still. And they'd be still. He'd command to the demons to depart, and they'd skedaddle to the house. He demonstrated. This is the area of the time of television. And the advertisers have learned that one ounce of showing demonstration was a pound of talking. I try my dead level best to get my wife to buy some of the things. They advertise on television. She buys them, and they don't do quite what they say. Now, they've got some wax polish you can put on that kitchen linoleum that you can see yourself in. But it won't work when it gets over to my house. But the Lord demonstrated his kingship. Aren't thou a king? Yes, sir! That's the reason I was born. And that's the reason I came into the world to bear witness unto the truth, the truth of why I was born and why I came into the world. And here's a verse that'll top you down off your religious high horse if you're on one. And if you've been listening to what's called the popular gospel of this hour, somewhere on the radio or somewhere, put it down if you heard it on the radio. It ain't so. God knows if anybody gets saved in spite of these radio preachers, it'll be a miracle. Everyone that is of the truth, heareth my voice. You listen when the Lord says, I was born to be a king. That's the reason I came into this world. If you're one of the truth. The reason you don't listen is you're going to hell. That's why you're going. And the reason you're going to hell is that you're not of the truth. Now, in this 14th chapter of the book of Romans, chapter 9 is our text. Verse 9 of Romans 14. Far to this end for this purpose that this might take place. Far to this end. Christ both died and rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and living. In these two verses of Scripture, now here, Brother Barnard, you've got the only two places in the Scripture where it tells us exactly why Christ died and was raised from the dead. And both of them tell you that he is born and he preached in John and he has died and he is raised in Romans just to do one thing. Not to be a Savior, but to be Lord. Now, let me repeat. I have offered $500 a war. I'll give it to you this morning. If you'll show me one line of Scripture that gave us any reason for accepting Jesus as our personal Savior. That's blasphemy. It's anti-Scripture. And it's filling hell with Baptists. That's the reason we have to have Red Crest, you know. Get all the unsaved Baptists down there to surrender to the Lord. When you surrender to the Lord, that's when you get saved. Now, the Scripture says he loved us and gave himself for us that he might deliver us from this present age, but that's just saved people. But here's something that ain't just talking about saved people. You want to tell you why Christ died? He might be Lord both of the dead and the living. Bible scholars divide on whether this is physical death and physical life or spiritual death and spiritual life, but it comes out the same thing, which I believe is spiritual. But whatever the interpretation comes out the same, the bulk of the world, my Lord, came down here and was born in a couch stable, lived in a body of humiliation, hung between two malefactors on a tree, buried in another man's tomb, swaddled in another man's clothing, perfumed with somebody else's bodily ointment. God raised him and enthroned him in order that he might reestablish the sovereign rule of Almighty God over everything that rise and wriggle. How come I stopped at a little great church house somewhere? I turned off 22, et cetera, finally found the sign, view of the church, and I came to a little church up there somewhere, and the graveyard right in front of it. How come there's no graveyards out there? There's no graves. How'd we get in the mess we're in? Chewing tobacco? No. Getting drunk? No. Going to pick the show? No. Committing adultery? No. Rebelling against the rule of Almighty God? Yes. Adam and Eve and you and I were present to Scripture saying it wasn't just his sin, it was ours. God made one little prohibition to establish that he was God and we were his subjects. And we said we'll not do it, and we broke God's law and said we will not be under your rule. In time God, in that most majestic Scripture ever penned, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. He said in a million years you'll never enter into that you just worship, can't understand it. But in time God, very God and very man. And if this isn't so, just always ready to go home there's nothing to anything if this book isn't smooth, if it doesn't give us the perfect record of the revelation of God in Christ to do sinners good. God was manifesting I left the hills said God. Most of them despised him and rejected him and counted him a gross thing. God came down here he didn't send us some advice he came down here. Became a million man, very man just like you and me. So we could understand his language touch him and be touched by him. And since man said man had to be the mediator for there is one mediator between God and man. What? The man, Christ Jesus. And you know what they did? You listen, you can hear Ralph Barnard's old voice worn out through years screaming, away with him away with him away with him crucify him crucify him release on earth all at once we will not have this man to reign over us. And praise God whether we will or not we will. But Jesus Christ came and died on the cross to re-establish God's rule in this world. And everything that lies in wriggles from Adolf Hitler to Khrushchev to Stalin to the murder of President and a Senator and a Negro leader in your day and mine to the slum of the air under the blessed rule of bloodstained Jesus. And the devil came even weak in eyelash except by the direct permission of God who loved man and gave himself on hallelujah what a Savior that could take a pull or send I tell you I brag on him he's a fine fellow. And so Jesus Christ died to establish God's rule God turned everything over to Christ and that means Christ ruled for he must reign 1 Corinthians 15 until everything be made subject to him and when that's done and when old Hitler bows and says Jesus is Lord when the murder of Senator Kennedy bows and says Jesus is Lord when the murder of our President Kennedy bows and says Jesus is Lord pastors that are saying God is dead and when the school teachers that are teaching evolution to our kids and when this godless society that's godless because the leaders are sold out to the dollar and gold when all men want the King Jesus God made it all in all including scripture brother you can't win hallelujah what a Savior and so he saves people by establishing his rule in your life that's what it means to save the first time you ever hear the gospel as gospel you receive several years that the gospel ain't good news to you cause in the language of dear old Vance Hapner he said I went to the old fashioned Mona's beach when I was a boy and they took me through the motions and I didn't know what it was all about but when I got up off my knees I understood one thing I had a new master that's it bud I had a new master and he's the Lord Jesus Christ that salvation is a new master praise God he's precious I'm vile but he's precious yes sir he's Lord by God's decree he's right absolute rule over my thoughts my body my spirit my work my worship my everything is not based on our recognition of it but on God's recognition of his work when he hung on that glory cross men do not meet Jesus Lord that's what they do down at Ridgecrest I've been there and all over the country look like I ain't much of a Baptist but I'm giving Baptist unchurched hell I want to get back to the Christ of the Baptist and I'm going to get kicked out of church listen who made Jesus Lord almighty God I will declare the decree yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion Psalms 2 I will declare the decree I won't ask him about his advice the Lord has said unto me now art my son this day have I begotten thee ask of me now I'll give thee the healing for thine inheritance and the uttermost part of the earth for thy possession who made Jesus Lord God almighty in John chapter 17 look at it these words speak Jesus verse 1 and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said father thou has come glorify thy son that thy son also may glorify thee as thou hast given him excelsior authority over all flesh that he should give eternal life he gives eternal life to as many as thou hast given him Acts 2.36 and verse Acts 2.36 therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Messiah I think one of the most damnable things that was ever invented to suit the popular taste of people who don't want to go to hell but don't want to be under God's rule and has been the heart of what's called the gospel in our circles these many years is that you take Jesus as your Savior but there ain't no such animal and sometimes it's convenient to surrender to him as Lord and we say won't you pretty please make Jesus your Lord honey you can't God beat you to it he made Jesus your Lord and you're his subject willing or unwilling and you're glad or mad but glad or mad he's been made your Lord now this is the heart of evangelism and missions which I I ask much confidence in your blessed pastor that I take a little liberty what we call missions has been a joke my God I'm glad God put it out of business maybe we'll buy a survivor been sending folks over to China to beg why the gospel don't begin by doing things the heart of it is go over to China put up the flag of King Jesus he owns it anyhow and say we are that's right that's it that's it this preacher he's got sense enough to come around rain ain't going around this country begging anybody to take anybody he's going around and if you are saying Jesus Christ God almighty has turned the heathen over to him the nation for his possession everything that's loose at one end and rattling at the other under his control China and Russia belongs to Jesus Christ he bought it on the cross and you belong to him he bought you on the cross he's Lord by now that's evangelism his lordship is deserved he who sought it not robbery to be equal with God humble himself took upon himself the form of a servant was found in the fashion and likeness of men and became obedient to the father up to the point of death I'm quoting Philippians 2 even the death of the cross wherefore God also hath highly exalted him in the old time in the bible that word exalted appears and given him a name which is above every name that is the name given unto Jesus revelations tell you who it is Lord of Lords King of Kings that is the name given unto Jesus every knee should bow every tongue confess what? well, what then, Sir Walter? you just didn't find it out until God put his foot on your neck and made you and then sent you to hell that Jesus is Lord to the glory of the Father not to your salvation but to God's glory God's going to get glory out of you if he sends you to hell and the way he's going to get it he's going to make you you can't win hallelujah, he deserves to be Lord one of the old Puritans said he sits on God's throne of majesty on high he got there by wading through the pool of his own blood our salvation, you better hear this our salvation must be grasped the salvation in for that Lordship and with this life passion of absolute obedience and reconciled communion we got so many people running around here they'll say but the will of God not central in their life now that's a joke you mean the one big thing makes you tick is not the will of God if it isn't, you're going to hell that's what salvation's all about we're to be conquered by him that's salvation mastered by him that's salvation obedience will have come for liberty, brother he deserves and demands not our sympathy but our worship Christ deals with no man as savior until his sovereign rule is established in your life this whole universe is beautiful this morning and awful hot beautiful as I grow it's a beautiful world and it is created to echo the glory of the Lord and the sovereign Lord receives his servant he doesn't plead to anybody, he receives he's not standing on the outside of your heart door he's sitting on the throne and the child of God who can find but one place to glory and that's the cross is tickled to death but the one who deserves it is God's prime minister God's Lord and the child of God is willing to go to hell if the glory of Christ is goodly served a hundred years ago you couldn't get baptized in the Baptist Church in America unless you could say that but you're willing to go to hell if that would give glory to Christ religion says a deep thinker has a meaning for men only if it finds in history a point to which it can absolutely surrender men can answer the revelation of God in Christ only by choice the final meaning of conversion is not deliverance merely but surrender in service to the uttermost the God of absolute deliverance is also the holy God of an absolute demand that will not let go the chief sign of salvation is not a sense of freedom but an experience of mastery and obedience the Lord takes possession of us and that is conversion if he saves you it is that he may be our clean and the last word of my Lord is not I save the last word of my Lord is I clean I clean you I brought you you belong to me you're not your own you're mine my time's up but I take 2-3 minutes for my last point not only is he God's Lord by God's decree God made him Lord of everybody not just saved people, everybody not only is he God's Lord because he deserves to be he died on the cross and there he brought you but thank God he's God's Lord because he desires to be now this looks like it will contradict the rest of my sermon but follow me in Hebrews chapter 12 by foreseeing we all so accomplished about with so great a crowd of witnesses let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us let us run the race of patience the race that is set before us looking unto Jesus Jesus the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy I've wondered what that was who for the joy that was set before him some joy was set out before my Lord you know, and looking at that joy in anticipatory rejoicing of that joy he endured the cross despising the shame and now hallelujah, he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God wonder what that joy is now listen to Brother Barton he has my explanation whether it's true or not on the shoulders of my Lord Jesus Christ has been placed the responsibility of saving his own and banning everybody else of disposing of the universe now my shoulder is not big enough to do that but Isaiah says the government should be on his shoulder most solemn thing I've ever faced is as I've gone up and down the land this September will be 43 years the last 36 of them I've been a hitchhiker evangelist going I'll be leaving this Friday and I won't get home till nearly Christmas away from home and I've lived these years and I'm not complaining I've had the best time you ever saw I've got a wonderful Lord to tell you these sinners are good but thank God he's dead well, see I've had to face men and women my heart's gone out to them because for the last six years there hasn't been enough gospel preached in America to save the free a hundred years ago our churches believed the gospel and now you've got a pastor that preaches the gospel he's one out of a thousand I mean among our Baptist preachers that's what God's for this generation of church members never have heard the gospel and you are in trouble and the chances are you're going to split because you won't hear the gospel and the most solemn thing I've ever faced is twofold Jesus Christ has got to save you or damage you I can't save you and I can't damage you he can save you and he can damage you now here's the other proposition the most damnable thing I ever heard preached was to try to get people to answer the question what will you do Jesus is standing in your life too what will you do now that'll damn anybody that listens to this hear me one time my Lord came and offered himself as the Messiah of the Jews that's the only offer he's ever made they rejected him now he's rejected them salvation's not an offer salvation's a gift and Christ is the gift watch out you don't give things to somebody unless you know they're going to be happy to get it Christ ain't going around here trying to get nobody to accept him unless your heart's long in time he's got more sense than we got he knows you can lead a meal to order but you can't make him drink if you don't want the fellowship of the saints and the joy of the spirit and your feet on a rock and heaven on the way to heaven and life worth living go to hell they'll find plenty of people that preceded you there God bless your whole family oh hear me it's not a question of what you'll do with Jesus that's done and settled you're going to bow to him you're going to get out on your knees and confess him and bow to him and you're going to open your lips and confess him as Lord you see it's not a question of whether you're going to do something with Jesus it's just a question of when you can reject him now most folks do but you will receive him then and since you're going to have to bow to him that makes grace so wonderful isn't it wonderful that in mercy and grace God almighty who wouldn't have to lift a finger he didn't let you go on and as many people acknowledge the lordship of Christ to the glory of the father if you never had a gospel sermon but in mercy he says if you could bow to him now I didn't say if you will I said if you can I expect most of you fix yourself up the way you can I know you won't because if you haven't anything to do about it you're going to hell God don't invade your will and have to educate about it if you're going to hell sure I agree with that but if you could if you could bow to him now it would be so much better wouldn't have to put a foot on your whole neck naked but you cut out this stuff about what you're going to do with Jesus you're going to bow to him you're going to receive him and I've been known as a grace preacher in this country I guess I'm the most cursed preacher in this section of this city every Baptist would let me preach to his corn cob they say that fellow bleeds in grace I do oh God almighty don't owe me a thing he's made Jesus my Lord he hasn't left it up to me as to whether I receive him as Lord but in mercy Christ he's going to have to get up early and fix it up to see his face when all hell is toppling doors were closed never preaching America cursing me oh rather nothing but cause and love and kindness Jesus Jesus died and he died for me we're under orders to preach who Jesus is and what he did and to command men to repent bow to him agree with God he's Lord I bow to him amen do you know the living Lord who's the Lord of life during the first world war a Red Cross nurse lay at the point of death and attending her was a sister Red Cross nurse and just a little while before the nurse died she began to wiggle her lips and finally had very little strength left she said bring bring and the nurse didn't know what on earth she wanted she brought a glass of water and she didn't want that came for die and cry oh and to the maid please if you