In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of true conversion and change in the lives of believers. He highlights the need for a genuine relationship with Jesus and a transformation of the heart. The preacher encourages listeners to become faithful and persistent listeners to God's Word, allowing it to guide their lives. He also emphasizes the significance of seeking the Lord wholeheartedly, rather than simply going through the motions of religion. The sermon emphasizes the need to know and understand who Jesus is and to have a personal relationship with Him.

If you'd like to follow in this scripture, we'll be reading from the 19th of the Gospel of Luke. I'd like to take a moment of explanation. I'm here to be of help if the dear Sovereign Spirit would be pleased to use me. But I want tonight, this morning and tonight and Monday night, to lay down a platform on anybody else's foundation. That is not scriptural, by the way. Do you understand that? Dear old P.T. Martin, I look out on this congregation. Most of us are young, you haven't got sense enough of me to talk to you. You say, well, I can't use good illustrations, you wouldn't know what I'm talking about. But if you've never heard of P.T. Martin, you won't be happy when you get to heaven. He's gone to be of the Lord now. I knew him in his dotage almost, but he was the greatest single church evangelist the South has ever produced. And he always had revival or got run out of town, wherever he went. And it ought to be that way again. Our message ought to be so positive that people would get off the fence of straddling. I've had people try to shoot me, I've had bombs put on the churches where I was built, way back yonder. But now, everybody believes everything, believes nothing, you know. I like to see a fellow like the little dog. I had a friend, he said he had a little dog, his name was Rover, and when he died, he died all over. And I like to see people believe something, whether it's right or not, and kind of fight about it. I tell you, Martin Luther said, no man's a friend of the gospel who doesn't stand up and be counted on any issue that's the issue of the hour. And certainly there are issues today that are worth living and dying for, and that are separating people. And I like that. If you let me lay down a platform, where dear old P.T. Martin always went, and the first service, he'd say, and this is what I'm going to talk about all the time I'm here, this is what I believe, and he'd divide the crowd. Sometimes they'd have to have a police escort to get him down to the depot before the mob got him. And sometimes they'd have over a thousand baptisms, hundreds of churches in the South, through that man's ministry. When he died, I like to think of it, he died on the second floor of the Baptist Hospital in Jackson, Mississippi. And when he died, every nurse and every doctor and every patient that could get out in a wheelchair, or crutches or hobble to meet him, assembled and crowded the second floor to listen to the old man die. And the old man who'd given some 50-odd years to evangelism, for the Lord that he'd come to know and love, he died singing, On Jordan's stormy banks, I stand and cast a wishful eye, To King unfair and happy land, Where my possessions lie, And in the crowd join with him, as he sang, I am bound, are you, for the promised land. That's late society now, don't reckon any of us will be interested in heaven, But I am bound for the promised land. Hallelujah, I am bound for the promised land. Oh, who will come and go with me? I am bound for the promised land. T.P. Martin died and he died singing the chorus. And I like to lay down my platform, not that I can stand in his shoe. May I say, ladies and gentlemen, there's just one issue. Before us today, yesterday, and tomorrow, God says that Jesus Christ is Lord. Totalitarian Lordship of Christ. No man knows, my Lord, who does not rejoice that God put him on a throne, Turned over everything that writhes and wriggles into his hands, So that a Hitler or a Khrushchev reigns and rules by the grace of our sovereign Redeemer. There's but one issue that's worth facing, And that's whether you have been by the grace of God Brought to where you rejoice that Jesus Christ is Lord of all. You couldn't find in the city of the suburbs of Houston An individual who would deny that Jesus is Lord, but they're not happy about it. And so it's not that you believe that Jesus is Lord that means salvation, It means you're glad he is. And no man will bow. Of course, they'll take Jesus as their personal Savior. I hope you don't use that expression around here. If you do, I'm going to break you of it. Because you can't cut Jesus up. They're taking him, I don't know what that means, Taking him as their personal Savior. I think that's awful nice, of course. But you can't cut Jesus up. He's Lord and Savior. And no man's ever going to bow and come to where he rejoices. That Satan, although he's the God of this present age, Cannot even wink an eyelash without the express permission of him In whom is all things and for whom are all things. Our Lord Jesus Christ. God says he's Lord. That's God's verdict about it. And we need to face it, and we'll be facing it this week afresh, That his sovereignty, his right to be absolute monarch In your thoughts and your life daily Is going to be settled before the matter of salvation is become real. And so we can lay down as our platform three things, And I'm not preaching on them, I mention them and they get to my text. The gospel is the proclamation publicly, privately, to crowds, Or to individuals by printed page in any way on earth. God's good news can be disseminated. The gospel is the proclamation of a person Who's sitting on a throne and who is head of this local body. He is, in Luther's words, ubiquitous. That's a big word and I don't know what it means, But he's in two places at the same time. There's a man in glory with a print of nails in his hands And the print of the thorns on his brow. A man, all man and all God. And he's right now the prime minister of the Godhead And nothing moves in this earth that he doesn't move. And also he's here, not in an invisible organism flying around in the sky, But in a local assembly of called out saints of God Meeting together to represent Christ, his absolute head. And the gospel is the proclamation of this person, Not simply some facts about him, But this person with the facts about him, Who's now sitting on a throne, And he got there by way of a bloody cross. And salvation is not in believing that Jesus died for you. Salvation is becoming vitally united in a living way To him who did die on a cross, But he's not there now, thank God. He's on the throne. In the second place, Salvation is a sweet, willing bowing to King Jesus, Where he is now. And if you want to get in touch, Of course if you want to make a public profession And do what's called make a decision to accept Christ, You can do all that without your heart being broken, Without the work of the Holy Spirit. But if you want to come to where Christ is real, Amen? He's earlier to you and nearer to you than any human being. If you want to come to be a branch from divine, You'll have to bow to him where he is, And you always bow at a throne. Salvation is when a man by God's marvelous grace Has been so broken that he sweetly bows To him as he sits on the cross. Revival, then, that you're faster speaking about, Would be simply men in love with Christ Where he is now, on the throne. Now, I do not know about this local assembly, But prayers and company accepted. There isn't a church in the world today That isn't split wide open here. And we cannot have revival in most places Because the people are split about who Jesus is And where he is. But praise God where you can get a group of people together Who will not only believe that Christ has been exalted And put on a throne, But they're glad he's there. He'll come to walk those aisles And split people's hearts. And miracles still happen. Hallelujah. Now this morning, may I begin By a very simple message I trust From the 19th chapter of Luke. Will you follow me carefully As I expound just a little while And then exhort. The 10th chapter of the 9th, The 10th verse of the 19th chapter of Luke Begins with the word f-o-r, far. Immediately, therefore, we'll have to Look at the scriptures above To find out what the far refers to. But let me read the text. Far, the Son of Man He has come To make an effort To seek And to do the best he can to save Everybody in the world. I must have missed it, didn't I? Did I read it right? Huh? This little defeated Jesus Bless his dear little heart. He needs you dear folks And I wish you'd let him come into your heart Because it's getting cold standing outside. This little defeated Jesus Has taken over Baptist ranks. A hundred years ago There wasn't a major denomination in America That didn't have a sound gospel foundation. That's what God's doing. There isn't a denomination beside the glory now That hasn't. A man asked me the other day He said, Brother Barnes You're up in years a little bit Been in this a long time When can we expect revival? And I said, my little old brain just says one thing When we quit Preaching a defeated Christ Then preacher Christ Who came down here to do a job And come He did and will do Exactly what he came to do For the Son of Man Is come on purpose To seek Not to try to seek And to save Not to make salvation possible For the Son of Man Is come to seek And to save That which was lost And I quit a long time ago Trying to get anybody to say That I find In which you can be a soul winner But the deepest sense of the That you're an intercessor And all of that But there is a place where you have to stop Cause the spirit of another human being Sets a holy spirit But I quit trying to get anybody to say But the Lord has been pleased And other days may strike out here Use the word to get somebody lost Cause I got good news for you Every lost person There won't be a lost person Go to hell In the world Is going to be saved I'll tell you why There's somebody looking for him Somebody came down here to seek him And somebody came down here To find him and save him Do you love that verse? And to save that which was lost Now we'll have to look in the verses above To get I thought everybody in this world was lost Oh no you're dead wrong dear friend Most folks are just exactly where they ought to be They're on their road to hell Way back yonder according to verse 9 We get a little key to it You know the story here There's a fellow named Jesus going along with his ex Jericho And this little old short fellow named Zacchaeus And he wanted to see Jesus who he was And he couldn't because he was short And there was such a great crowd And he ran ahead and climbed in the sycamore tree To see Jesus who he was And when Jesus came to the place He looked up and saw him and he said Get on down out of that sycamore tree I must survive I must I must No doubt about it I got to spend the night at your house I must survive in your house And old Zacchaeus took all the bark off that tree And came down and received him joyfully And he went home with him And the religious crowd The people who Well now Sunday morning churches All over America now People who use the grace of God As an excuse to live like hell This religious generation We had them then And they got mad And verse 7 said When the religious people Saw what he'd done They murmured They complained They said look at that He's gone to be the guest of a man who's a sinner That word sinner there means He's not in our crowd And Zacchaeus stood up and said Lord I'm going to All this money I stole I'm going to pay it back Four dollars for every dollar I stole And I'm going to give half my goods to the poor And then verse 9 And Jesus said unto him Now watch this I want to talk to you this morning about Why Zacchaeus got saved First reason Jesus said unto him This day If salvation comes To this house Watch this For as much as he Also is a son of Abraham Way back yonder First time the gospel as a covenant was preached God preached it to a man by the name of Abraham The record of it is in Genesis chapter 15 Read it and get home to your emphasis And he took Abraham out one night And said look up there Why don't you count those stars Abraham said too many And he said that's where it's going to be Of your seed And it turned out brother Zacchaeus That Galatians chapter 3 I can't remember the verse Talks just about somebody Hanging on a tree Being made a curse For us That's the blessing of Abraham Turned out old Zacchaeus Was a son of Abraham Now somebody said Brother Barney explain this to me No I can't do it I just worship And hope that I'm also One of those multitudes of people That God gave Abraham He said you can't name None of those stars That's where it's going to be Of your seed And turned out that Jesus Christ And the blessing God And way back yonder Well I believe it And it might get saved If you get to the place That you will allow God to be God They're the people that God gave Abraham And the rest of these These first nine verses From the human standpoint And I get my teeth in this And I believe this of it And I have some marks on my body Because I do For the glory of God But now I want to talk to you About five things That are true Of a lost person That's going to be saved And I want to mention Two of them this morning And then preach on them tonight And then just briefly talk about Three of the five things In this passage it's fifty Five things that clearly show About a fellow Who God's going to save Now I do not know Whether this is too rough or not But God saves people on purpose He sets out to save people One walked up to me and said Brother Barnard I think I've mentioned this word here He said that election business I know it's in the scripture But I don't understand it And I said well dear sister He said I am Praise God I said who saved you He said God saved me I said did he do it on purpose Or was it an accident He has an old arm And tall feet And a bad back Over there He's got that blood And he's got the spot And I asked God And he said He saw down there The great heavenly choir And he said And he said he went and took his seat And joined in singing He said he knew the tune He'd been practicing And the gospel determined To rescue a people For his blessed son Out of the ruins Of Adam's sin But this thing I'm going to talk about now And understand a little bit I think first Anybody that ever gets saved That will become a seeker That he has sought To see Jesus Jeremy Who he was The greatest miracle I know Is not divine healing Although I believe God heals people The greatest miracle I know Is an old slapper's panty Or a drugstore cowboy Or a big business man Or a society sister In the future of the world I've been around His eternal destiny Into the hands Of an unrevealed Christ This vision has its place But it always must come As a result Of the Holy Spirit Making real to you The person of Jesus Christ That's the battleground of this hour There's only one question worth answering Who is Jesus But I'm going to preach on that tonight In the second place He became a persistent seeker He went ahead You couldn't see him because he was short He went ahead and climbed the sycamore tree Those ran into them That old boy said I'm going to get I'm going to find out who he is I feel so sorry For dear church people You know the safest place To hide from God now Is to be a church member That's about the surest way To be dead certain you'll go to hell Just go through the motions And I tell you honey If you get to Christ In a real relationship From hell or high water Grandpa, grandma, mama Business, pastor, deacons, church Everything else to the contrary You'll have to spit on your hands And roll up your sleeves And speak to the Lord A couple of young preachers When I'm leading the singing The other is a pastor Graduated from one of our Bible institutes I think it's This is different Boy I'm interested in this school I've been looking all over America Been thinking about starting schools I've got millionaire friends That want to pour money Into a school that would Keep salving Southern Americans Let's just say this is it After I've been preaching four or five days They came to see me And said Brother Barnard You are our elder We wouldn't rebuke you But you've torn us all to pieces We've been taught That no man Seeketh after the Lord You come around and say If a fellow ever gets saved He's going to have to become a seeker And a persistent seeker I said yeah A miracle's got to take place But I want to speak God willing on that tonight In the third place If a man ever gets saved He'll become a hearer Of God's word The Lord spoke to Zacchaeus And said Zacchaeus Things that get personal What mama heard from God Won't help you And memorizing John 3 16 Won't help you And getting your doctrines straight Won't help you This has got to be A miracle Where you hear God speak into you Through his word I became a crank As they called me all these years I had the honor of going to school With Dr. W.T. Conner I had a good deal of trouble With Dr. Conner And I just had My first pastor was like this I started with seven members And got size 2361 people In 16 months Few of them got saved I was a big shot When they all told me I ought to go to the seminary And learn how to be a preacher And so I went down there And I didn't know one doctrine from another But I think I knew the Lord And I called him on this I had a lot of trouble with Dr. Conner Poor fellow, he didn't know much And oh, I had so much trouble with him And I argued with him And one day I went down To the second-hand bookstore In the brood Where everybody was around And picked up a book of sermons With Dr. B.H. Carroll Everybody in Texas knows him Founder of the seminary I took that, paid a dime for it And I read that night a sermon John 5, 27, or whatever it is The voice of authority There, there I say unto you The hour is coming, and now is When the kids shall hear his voice And they that dare shall live And Dr. Conner made a statement I can quote it He said, I well know, Dr. Whatever his name is, Carroll He said, I well know that my poor voice Is the only voice you hear You'll go away from this service Nothing better But if in the providence of a sovereign God Through my humble lips You hear the voice of him Who has authority to say Lazarus, come forth and he'll come You'll go away saved I didn't have any more trouble With Brother Conner after that He taught me the great doctrines of grace And I rebelled against them But that was the fact, that key I saw then And we just well have an understanding About this is it I won't budge from this Fire me out Men are not saved By summoning up all of their feeble will And making a decision Men are saved Through the grace of God Enabling them to Answer and respond To that voice That speaks In dead men live That's how men are saved The tragedy of my life The cost that I bear If with me 24 hours a day Is the complexity of the hours Which will live Nobody's got time Hey for you Be somewhere else From now on Is it typical You'd like to get to heaven But you haven't got time And some fool preacher Or some fool evangelist Will come along and talk you in To making a decision And let you go on to hell Men are saved When that voice That speaks To dead men And gives them life When they hear his voice That's when men are saved And it's not apart from this word It is God speaking Through his word But it's not just believing the bible It's believing the word of him Who speaks through the bible That's the way men are saved I wish you had time to listen You might hear from God It's a miracle that we have this faith You know them better And I've seen it happen You just had time But most of you have already decided for Christ And you're happily going to hell And you'll never hear from God It isn't yours It's a gift It's coming By hearing And you hear And listen to him As he speaks through his word I beg you For your soul's sake Cut across the brain Of present day religiosity And become a faithful Persistent Continual Listener To God's word Who knows He might call you My king Listen to my voice Everybody that's saved or ever will get saved The time comes When he becomes a listener In the fourth place He receives The Lord Jesus Joyfully With emotion I've got this ice cold stuff they call today Emotion Emotion This is the deepest thing they'll ever cut through He receives them gladly He came down that boy He clipped down that tree and received them gladly On the day of Pentecost They gladly received his Peter's word Gladly received it They said this is for us This is good news Hallelujah Emotion I long for a return of that And I was a young fella I used to listen to old Bud Robertson Woo! My, I've already preached to him I used to listen to old Bud Robertson He was a Methodist He got saved and they kicked him out And he joined the Nazarenes He butchered every doctrine in the Bible But he loved Christ And he had a lip And I heard him tell a dozen times What he called his experience He said, you know folks He said, I'm the most miserable person this side of here He said, I was lost and unnoticed And he said, I sought the Lord And I sought him and I sought him and I sought him And he said, I prayed I went to all the preachers And they told me what to do And I done it and didn't do no good He said, I was awful Oh, he said, I was an awful kid You ever saw him He said, one day the old lady told me to go down An unstaked tower Had a staked tower And I went down I bent down on my white knee To untie the rope And said, when I got down there I couldn't get up And said, I put the other knee down I said, Lord, I'm going to stay white here Can you save me or damn me? And said, when I done that This been burning ever since Receiving remorse I It's been hard on you I know it's late In the fifth place We experienced change He said, I'm going to pay back four dollars That one of us stole And I'm going to have my good Something happened to that old boy That commission knows This religious revival Everybody done got I have a way of saying If somebody got saved in our churches It might start a revival But the rest of us folks Been going through the motions It's a shame He got changed Oh, this is the attribution No change, no conversion Not perfect yet But wants to be And on the road Still in the flesh But loving Jesus With all of our hearts With a new motive And a new ambition Something to make life worth living That's what we need Change Change I have a black Pearl 610 I wouldn't take a million dollars for it Tell you how I got it I started a church in a saloon In Borger, Texas Right after I was saved Had seven people Converted in that saloon Organized the Baptist church It began to grow It was the only church in the city That boomed town to 50,000 people I'll tell you about it next Saturday night And I moved into that community A man by the name of C.J. Collins He was a big shop His wife joined our church He'd been connected with Rockefeller And Carnegie and other big businessmen He'd gone broke He'd come to that border That boomed town At the present time He was engaged in Legal but crooked operations He got to come to the enemy place He'd read the Bible for years To argue about it He's smart as a razor there He said, Dan, listen This kid preached the preach One week his wife came to see him And said, next Sunday I was single You'll have Sunday dinner with us Said, my husband's interested Said, he'd listen He said, soon as we get through eating I'm going to have to run an error And I'm going to leave you with him I won't keep tackling And I did And he chewed me up and spit me out I didn't know much about the Bible At the start I couldn't explain a lot of things Man, he knew it Oh, he butchered me I sat at that table and cried like a baby That fella butchered me That afternoon West Texas It came a downpour It don't rain there often And it rained all afternoon The streets were flooded Boy, it was a crash The light of the angels that night But it rained so Didn't have a little corporate guard And I couldn't rest One of those big sermons on that And I was mad anyhow And I was blue and disgusted And I stood up there Mouthed around a little bit And that's why I said We'll stand for an invitation Before we get the invitation started There came C.J. Carnes Stomping like his heart would break Running down the aisle And he said You're crazy Surrendered to him And the next Sunday I called on to pray And he said Our Father which art in heaven I never did this before And I don't know how to go about I remember his prayer If you'd come down and help And raised a lot of money And his testimony spread over that city Went out of all of his crooked business And got a good job And one day he called me up He said come down I want to talk to you And I sat on the opposite end From him on the desk And he said kid That's what he called me Kid You're no pastor He said I heard all the big preachers in America To argue with him Had to come way out here To this God forsaken country Yeah boy I wasn't dry behind the ears Before he kept pressing the claims of Christ on me So I couldn't resist Then he got up from his seat Came around Put his arm around me Kissed me on both cheeks He said pastor I'll always love you Cause you wouldn't let me alone You committed me for Christ I left there and went to Southwestern Seminary To send a telegram to me Somewhere in there they got your name And this man Carnes is dead Before I got the telegram He asked that I come before he died By the time I got the telegram And got on the phone he was dead A week later his wife Came from Barga Texas to Fort Worth Just to bring me a present And his last words