In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of understanding why Jesus Christ died on the cross and was raised from the dead. He urges the audience to pay attention to the whole gospel and the whole Christ, as nothing less and nothing more will suffice. The preacher quotes from Ephesians 4:8, highlighting the triumph of Jesus' ascension and the significance of Him being made Lord. He also emphasizes the need for people to recognize that God is determined to punish sin, and that this truth should be burned into their souls.

We find these striking words. God says, the wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God. Despite everything we hear today, and we hear it by not hearing it mostly, hell, God's eternal penitentiary of the damned, is a terrible reality that men need to be faced with these days. I'm aware of the fact that the popular God of popular Christianity today is not the God of the Bible. Like a dead trunk, the popular God has no eyes to see, no ears to hear, and no arm to punish the ungodly. But the God of the Bible had fire for Sodom, he had iron for Samaria, for Tyre, for Jerusalem, and for Belshazzar. The God of the Bible dashed to pieces, sending nations like a potter's vessel. However, the modern God has no judgment in his hand. The modern God, according to the popular gospel today, has sheathed the sword and sits down as an indulgent weakling. His arm, which used to visit vengeance upon independent sinners, now hangs nerveless and paralyzed. That is the popular God. I refuse to worship such a God. Such a God is the creation of men's wishes, but not the God of the Bible. My friend, the true God is unchangeable. The word of God will say, I am Jehovah, I change not. That is a word that smites modern thought and popular infidelity on the cheek, and one day will put an end to all unbelief. An old-time writer has said that he who hurled oceans over Alps and Andes, drowning a guilty world, he who reduced Sodom to ashes, he who destroyed Jericho with its inhabitants, he who gave Jerusalem to the Roman armies, he is the one who says, I am Jehovah, I change not. And what he has done before, he can and will do again. It is a fact, whether we are willing to face it or not, it is a fact settled in the heavens that the God of the Bible has both mercy and justice. At Mount Sinai of old, he set forth his justice. At Calvary of old, he is shown to be just and merciful. A God who is all mercy and not just, is an idol of the evil imaginations of modern man. Such a God is not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible, God pity them art, the God of the Bible is the unknown God today. Justice and mercy are the pillars of God's throne, and the day you take away justice and the punishment of sin, that is the day when you have denied the true God and made your God out of the figment of your own imagination. But such a created God is not the God of the Bible, he is not the God of people, he is not the God of Calvary, he is not the God of all heaven and of all earth. And before the God of the Bible, the God of Calvary, the maker of heaven and earth, the God of heaven and earth, before that God, one day all men must stand. Oh, hear me this day, there is a hell. Be sure of that. Do not hide your face as an ostrich in the sand and throw the Bible out the window, and Christ and the gospel with it, and seek to live as if the modern mind had been able to undo the revelation of God about hell. Oh, hear me, there is a hell. You know, the Hebrew people took their idea of that awful place called hell from Hinnomsville, which was a deep gorge on one side of Jerusalem. Here they had handed Manasseh of old past his children through the fire to Moloch, while the thunder of drums drowned their dying screams. This place was the sewer of the city, the place where all kinds of filth and impurity were dumped, to consume which fires were kept constantly burning. And stenchful smoke, always lying over that horrid veil, made it a picture of hell. Yes, there is a hell. Though fast-growing universalism, my highest growing today, arises today to tell us that all alike, saint and sinner, will turn up in heaven at last, there is a hell. There is a hell, although today's soft sentimentalism tells us that the murderer and the murdered, the seducer and the seduced, the hater and the hated, the thief and his victim, will all find heaven at last. Though all of that, there is a hell. There is a hell, though popular theology assures us today that Cain and Abel, David and Herod, Jezebel and Elijah, Judas and Peter, Nero and Paul, all come out at the same side of the judgment throne, there is still a hell. What a strange heaven we ought to have after all, if we believe what we hear today. The hypocrites and whoremongers will be there. The drunkards will be there. The backbiters will be there. The blasphemers will be there. All of them will be there together with the saints in heaven in the undefiled home of God. Now, if reason had not altogether left us, such thinking is blasphemous. Men and women, you need to ponder long the truth, that if sin is being rooted into your soul, you shall not throw it off as you do your clothes. Sin becomes a part of your being, and sin will live long after sun and moon have passed away, and sin, if not checked in this life, will destroy or ruin you in the life to come. I am saying to you that the hour calls us to hurry back to the Bible and find truth to walk therein, whatever the cost. If we recall old folkies, so be it. If it be said of us we are trying to scare men, so be it. I well know that we cannot scare men into heaven, but the truth of the awful destiny to which men are plunging today on motorcycles of wrath, oh, sometimes in the hands of God the Holy Ghost, that truth faithfully proclaimed, has been and still will be, we truly believe, used of God to induce men to seek a living faith in and a living relationship with the Christ of God. I am not ashamed of trying to scare men under God if the Bible be true, and under God it is. There are things that men ought to be afraid of. I don't want to go to hell, and I am enough of a Christian, I hope that I don't want anybody else to go to hell. And I thank God the gospel shows us that God does not want men to go to hell. I thank God the Bible is true, that he prefers to show mercy instead of justice. I thank God the scriptures say you have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. But I am preaching to you now in a generation that has heard so little of the terrible, terrible truth of hell, and we need to face that truth. When we do we shall find again that the God of all the earth has spoken, the wicked, S-H-A-L-L, shall be turned into hell. God cannot be changed, nor can he be bent to modern day thought. We need, for instance, to read over and over again the ninth chapter of the gospel according to Mark. Three times in that single chapter, our Lord, when he was here in the days of his humiliation, speaks of a worm that never dies, and of a fire that never shall be quenched. Now, do you suppose our Lord told a lie when he spoke of unquenchable fire in the sixteenth chapter of the gospel of Luke? Do you believe that God's Son, our Lord, pictures a lie when he shows us the rich man lifting up his eyes in torment and begging that somebody dip his finger in a cup of water and bring it, put it on his tongue, the coolest tongue? Do you believe he was lying? Do you believe that he sought simply to frighten with lying pictures of that which never existed? Ah, dear one, our Lord either told the truth, or he's a deceiver. Let it be burned into our hearts again and again, that if there is no hell there is no heaven, for unto God they stand or fall together, for all we know about either is found in the holy word of God. And if hell is a fable, so is heaven. God help us, there is a hell as you love your soul, let no doubt rest in your mind. If there be no hell, then Calvary has lost its meaning, and Christ's death was an awful mistake, made either by a monster God or a misguided Jesus, and we cannot believe that. Hell and the Deity of Christ Jesus go together. If there is no hell to be shunned, then Jesus was not God. By the holy character of sin, by the demands of a broken law, by the truth of God's word, and by the death of God's son, be warned, flee from the wrath to come, my friend, is the prayer of this speaker, as he invites you to give earnest heed to our closing word of announcement. May I ask you a question on this broadcast today, dear one? Do you believe that God will punish sin? Do you believe that God ought to punish sin? Do you believe that the very holy character of God demands that sin shall be punished? The experience of this man who is now speaking to you after 41 years of trying to be a gospel preacher, is that the greatest need of this hour is that men and women shall be confronted with and have burned into their souls afresh the awful dynamic truth that the God of all heaven and earth, the God and Father of the Lord, Jesus Christ, is determined to punish sin. Here is a question to which we ought to give earnest heed and thought. If the answer to this question, will God punish sin, is no, then Christianity is what Bible-denying liberals and modernists today say it is. It is merely a philosophy. It is just a good way of life. It is a system of ethics or something like this. But if the answer to the question, whether God will and is set to punish sin, if that answer is yes, then we need to ask, how will he punish sin? If God is set to punish sin, how has God declared in his word that he will go about seeing to that very punishment? In order to answer that question, let's ask the question first, what is sin? Our question is, will God punish sin? Not misery, not ignorance, but sin. And sin isn't ignorance, it's rebellion. What is sin? When we turn to the word of God, we read expressions like this, sin is the transgression of the law. And a better expression is, sin is lawlessness and lawless attitude and lawless actions that come from that deep-seated attitude. Listen, sin is not simply just not knowing about something. Sin is refusal to walk in what light one has. Sin is absolutely willful. Sin is trying to live in God's world as if you were God instead of God. Now, of course, any definition of sin falls short. There are several in the Bible. But some people say, well, the law is merely a code of ethics of an outworn generation way back yonder in the time of Moses. But my friends, that's not so. The law is the righteousness and the glory of the eternal almighty God. When the law is seen as it truly is, and men are seen as they truly are, we have to conclude that the Apostle Paul was right when he said, for A. L. L., all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But for men and women today who feel that they are not transgressors of the law, they are not lawless rebels, the word of God gives other definitions which perhaps show our lack a little more vividly. For instance, the scripture will say, whatsoever is not of faith is sin. And that certainly slaves us all. Any doubt, any anxiety, any worry is the product of faithlessness. And such, says the Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the scripture, is sin. The Apostle James puts it this way, to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not to him it is sin. This comes in under the category of what we call neglect. Then there is another definition of sin. The thought of foolishness is sin. And here is still another. If you have respect to persons, you commit sin, and are convinced of the law and convicted of the law as transgressors. You know, the Apostle Paul was right, dear one, all have sin. Well, then if it be true, preacher, that all have sinned, so what? A God of love who understands us surely would not harm us for a little thing like sin, would he? That's what people are saying today. I'm afraid this is a typical understanding of God that men of this generation have. They say, so well, we've all sinned, so what? They say God is love, so it must not be too bad. And when we base our faith and our doctrine on this concept of God, the end result is always with this type of thinking. Well, sin's not so bad after all. We are none of us perfect, and I don't think this is any more harm than that. And God is so good that I don't believe that he will punish us for our sin. Now, God help us, this is the thinking that is produced by the God of this age who blinds the minds of those who believe not. Oh, Satan doesn't want us to see the gospel of the glory of God in Christ. Why? Why it reveals God's pure light and his holy justice. The gospel of glory reveals God's holiness, which when it is seen, exposes our sinful hearts. So men prefer to create for themselves a God of love, as they call him, who they say, and I believe, think, weaks at sin. They say God is too good to send men to hell. But dear ones, the better we understand God, the God of the Bible, the God of the Lord Jesus Christ, the more we are able to understand how awful and terrible sin is. A revelation of God reveals this. God hates sin, so much so that he drove Adam and Eve from Eden's paradise because of sin. God hates sin so much that he killed all but eight people once in the days of Noah because of it. Scientists tell us that the population of the earth in Noah's day goes about what it is today, nearly three billion people. I don't know whether they're right or not, but if they are, God killed three billion people by the flood because of Si and sin. Who did that? The God of the Bible. Oh, men need to fear such a wrathful God as this one described in the Word of God as having wiped three billion people off the face of the earth because of Si and sin. This God destroyed a city by fire and brimstone, Sodom and Gomorrah, because of sin. God hates sin. He hates sin so much that he created a region called hell and has decreed that its fire shall burn forever and ever and ever. Who did that? The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who did that? The God before whom all people must stand at judgment. This God created hell for Satan and who Satan blinds to their lost condition. And God let it be burned into our souls. God has determined to punish sin. He cannot remain God unless he puts sin out of business. And since all have sin, it means all are damned. And since none of us are exempt from the race of Adam, all of us are sure to be sent by holy God to eternal hell apart from Christ. All are under condemnation. All are condemned. Sin must be punished. And God began punishing sin, punishing everything contrary to that sin, everything contrary to his holy nature. He began that in Eden, and he has been doing such ever since. And he will ultimately punish sin by eternal fire. Since fire in itself cannot eradicate sin from God's holy, fainting eyes, hell must go on forever and ever, for the fire can only begin to punish sin. And infinite crime, s-i-n, sin, deserves infinite punishment, h-e-l-l. And such punishment can only be just by lasting throughout eternity. God hit us. This is how much God hates sin. He'll punish it by eternal fire. There is only one thing, but thank God there is one other thing which God uses to punish sin, and that's blood. By one drop of Christ's blood, oh, by one drop of Christ's blood, just one drop of Christ's blood, satisfies God's eternal justice more than twenty million years of burning fire. Yet twenty million years of burning fire will only begin to satisfy God's holy justice, and hence the fires of hell will never go out. But the same God who set out to destroy all Egypt's firstborn some thirty-five hundred years ago, is looking fiercely at this sinful and wicked world with one but one hopeful utterance, and that is this, when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. Thank God, thank God. There is refuge from God's awful holy wrath in the precious blood of his dear Son. That refuge is to be found. God looks at the blood and passes over the sins of those whose sins are covered by his blood. Thanks be unto God. Some of us sing the little couplet, My only hope, my only plea, Christ Jesus died and he died for me. And that's our faith, and that's our trust, and that's our hope, and that's our only faith, and our only trust, and our only hope. But thank God it abides forever. My dear friend, God is fierce and he's grieved with people today. Men's awful sins are hideous in his holy eyes, and the word of God is crystal clear that he's set to punish men, as certainly as you listen to the sound of my voice. I want to ask you, in your condition right now, are you as sure for hell as the dawning of the sun? Don't sneer, don't laugh, don't blaspheme. God's day is coming. It's just around the corner for you. Are you going to hell? Oh, you now may laugh at holiness and righteousness, but then you'll weep and wail and gnash your teeth in the fires of a burning hell. That knows no end. Oh, may I beg you to flee to Christ and bow before him. There's hope still. Are you weary? Are you troubled? Are you broken in heart for your sins? The Savior says, come unto me. He says, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, I'll rest you. This is his love. It's found only in Christ. Flee from the wrath of God to come. Let nothing stop you. Flee to Jesus Christ, the living Lord, is my prayer. Now will you listen carefully to our announcement. I speak to you today on the subject, the Ascended Lord. The Ascended Lord. My friends, there is a nominal Christianity which is accepted and approved of men. It's a very popular day, but the pure gospel is still despised and rejected. The real Christ of today among men is unknown and unrecognized as much as he was among his own nation 1900 years ago. Christ in doctrine, Christ in spirit, Christ in life. This world cannot endure him as King. Now, it's all right for men to chant about him in cathedrals or sing about him in synagogues or preach about him in pulpits, but Christ honestly obeyed. Christ followed and worshipped in simplicity without pomp or form. Christ exalted as prophet, priest, and King, not later but now. This kind of Christ or this Christ men will not allow to reign over them. Somewhere in my reading, I came across the richness of the ascension. I was struck by the expression because so little is said or even written these days about the tremendous act of God concerning his son being raised from the dead. This is the climax of the gospel. A gospel that does not speak of an ascended Lord is not the gospel of God. If the gospel is Christ and Christ is the gospel, and surely this is true, then we must proclaim a Christ risen, exalted, and now reigning. He must be preached where he is now and identified, this living Lord, as the preexistent, virgin-born, sinlessly living, vicariously dying Son of the living God. Always the apostles preached the living Christ and worked backward. That is the decided reverse from what we call the gospel today. But this is God's good news. How can Christ be preached if he is not preached where he is right now? And if Christ be risen and exalted, then the rest is easy to accept. If not, the virgin birth and everything else cannot be accepted. But if a man can believe in his heart that that baby who wound up on a glory cross outside the city of Jerusalem is now the exalted Son of God at God's right hand, then everything else of the gospel story is easy to believe. The whole pattern of the gospel story sinks or swims on the truth or the falsity of the resurrection and the exaltation of Jesus Christ. In that classic passage, Philippians 2, verses 9 and 11, the Apostle Paul says, Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name, that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. I'm interested in that word, hupso, which is translated exalted, and it is never used of the resurrection. It is the word for the ascension or the exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus, it was by his ascension that Jesus Christ was marked out to be Lord, as by his resurrection he was marked out to be the Son of God in power. By the resurrection, Jesus is seen as victor over death and corruption. By the ascension, he is seen to be Lord with all power in heaven and earth. Now, as sin was shown to be subject to him by his sinless life, as death was shown to be subject to him by his resurrection, so all things in heaven and earth are shown to be subject to him by his ascension. It was not that the ascension affects his Lordship any more than the resurrection affects his victory over death. Rather, the ascension is the designation and the demonstration of his Lordship. It is the designation of his Lordship in that it is the reward of the Father for his perfect obedience. In his humanity, he was subject to his Father. It is demonstration since he ascended of his own will, his own power, and in his own right. Now, it is true to say that God raised him and that he raised himself. God took him up and he ascended of his own power. The Apostle Paul points out the tremendous significance of the ascension as he comes to the climax of his sermon on the day of Pentecost. There, Peter quotes first from Psalms 110, and then he says, Therefore, therefore, therefore, in view that is of the ascension of Christ, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye crucified, both Lord and Messiah. Thus the climax of gospel preaching must be right here. This is God's answer and this is God's act. Men killed Jesus, God exalted him. We thus preach this Jesus. Peter writes, Jesus Christ is gone into heaven and is on the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him. This is true, and it is true right now. Not that it is going to be true in some distant future. For instance, we ask the question, where is the crucified Christ now? The answer is, he is at the right hand of God. All things are unto him in O. W. Now. I know the hour is late, and I am saying that it is long since time that this generation hear the gospel, not just a part of it, not just some links in the chain of it, but the whole gospel, and the whole Christ is the whole gospel, nothing less and nothing more. In the book of Ephesians, at chapter 4 and verse 8, the Apostle Paul quotes from Psalms 18 and portrays a wonderful picture in this connection. He said he led captivity captive. The ascension is the triumphal return to heaven of the Son of God. That is where he is. He is conquered, and now he returns with the captives of war. What are the sin and death? Those enemies of man and God, those tyrants which had enslaved men, are themselves now subjected and held captive to him who openly triumphed over them. Praise the Lord! The power of sin is broken. It shall not any longer lord it over the believer. Death is swallowed up in victory, thank God. Its cruel reign is ended. Christ the conqueror rules, and the scriptures say he shall rule till he hath put all enemies under his feet in that shouting ground. Now for the Apostles, they found greatly needed help and hope. They see now that the resurrection proclaimed the King after all, the suffering servant of Jehovah, is enthroned, this same Jesus. His kingdom indeed is not of this world. He will and he does reign, but not simply from an earthly throne. His kingdom is and shall be glorious, but it shall not be the glory of this world. He is and shall be victorious, but his victory shall not be achieved through the blood and steel of men. The cross was a decisive and atoning conflict. The resurrection was the proclamation of that triumph. The ascension was the conqueror's return with the captives of war which it issued in the enthronement of the victorious King. Let us do away with the preaching of a pitiable, helpless Jesus. Thank God he is not in exile, hooked for watching to see what happens. He is the enthroned Lord into whose kneel pierced hands the control of all things and all men have been given. It sure needs to be shouted from the housetops now, as perhaps never before, that everything depends on a man's union with a living, present Lord. For in the absence of that union, even the gospel of the cross loses its saving power. The Apostle Paul will say, If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, you are yet in your sins. The atoning work of Christ remains impersonal and largely irrelevant until we make contact with the one who atones, and contact of a vital kind is possible only if Jesus is risen, is alive, and is on the throne now. James Denny, the great theologian in his book The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation, says that nothing could be more curiously unlike the New Testament than to use the resurrection to belittle or disparage his death. But in this message I am not disparaging the death of my Lord, I am simply insisting that unless Christ is now enthroned, his death is powerless to save. And I am saying that without a living, present reign in Christ with whom through faith the believer can come into union, all the benefits of his death would have had to stand unappropriated forever. It was on the resurrection and ascension of Christ that the church of the living God was built. It was the experience of union with the risen, exalted living Lord that made them conquerors, the ascended Lord. Glory, hallelujah, the gospel is the good news of a man in glory at the right hand of God. Do you know him? My personal experience is my question, and I beg you to give it earnest heed. And now, our announcement. Let me speak to you at this time on the subject, Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It is not without significance that there are only five verses of scripture in the entire New Testament in which the titles Lord and Savior occur. Just five of these scriptures where Lord and Savior both occur. It is not without significance that in each one of these five verses of scripture, the title Lord always precedes the title Savior. I wish that we could get this into our hearts and that this should characterize our gospel in these days where Christianity is becoming a joke, where theologians talk about the day of post-Christianity, when everything has been thrown into discard and men now set themselves up as their own saviors. I wish we could recall the emphasis of the Bible that in order for a man to know Jesus Christ as Savior, he must know him as his absolute Lord, Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Let me read just one of these five verses in the New Testament in which the term Lord and Savior appear in the same verse. In 2 Peter 1, verse 11, I read these words, For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. My old professor of theology in Southwestern Seminary years ago used to drill into those young preachers, I was one of them, whom he was trying to instruct in the great foundational truths upon which we are to stand and proclaim a living Lord who was crucified but now is alive forevermore. That dear old man of God used to try to drill into us that every awakening time in the history of the Church, every time we have some evidence of an outpouring of the Holy Ghost, has been accompanied by somebody getting a hold of a truth that has been long neglected and going crazy over it. And surely the truth that has been so neglected in what we call gospel preaching today is the truth that Jesus Christ is God's Lord and that he saves men by translating them out from under the kingdom of the rule of darkness and putting them over under the rule of King Jesus, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Surely he must be preached as Lord to men and women who would experience the saving power of his life laid down on Golgotha's cross. I want today to emphasize three truths about Jesus Christ as Lord. Before I come to them, let me insist again that he is Lord by God's decree. God made him Lord. The most damnable thing I think that is being preached over this country is that men make Jesus their Lord. Won't you make Jesus your Lord? We have had people exhort us to do that. But no, salvation doesn't come by men making Jesus Lord. Salvation comes as men, led of the Holy Spirit, recognize that God has already made Jesus Lord. And they gladly bow to that one climactic act of Almighty God for time and eternity. One thing settled in the heavens, Jesus is God's Lord. Oh, to be able to sweetly bow to that fact and to him as God's Lord on God's throne there forevermore until his enemies be made his footstool. And as God's Lord, God's Lord by decree and by that decree, the Lord Jesus Christ does three things. First of all, he dictates, he dictates, he dictates. We do not come to an agreement, but he dictates, he spells out the terms of his salvation. He does that. Men will never be saved by making their own terms of peace with the Lord Jesus Christ. Men may be saved if they are able to bow to his terms and obey his terms in the power of the Holy Ghost. And they are old, and they haven't changed, and they never will change. And he, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will have all men saved and come unto the knowledge of truth, faithfully presents in the gospel through his preachers and his witnesses the terms upon which his salvation is predicated. Repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Nobody is ever saved apart from being able themselves to exercise God-given repentance and God-given faith. There is something about these expressions that are taught in the word of God that I don't understand. I know that God will not repent for you, and yet I know that he must grant you repentance. I know that God will not exercise faith for you, and yet that faith is his gift. If you can understand that, you are smarter than I am. All I know for a sinner to do is to abandon all hope in himself and look unto God to grant unto you the ability to abhor yourself and recognize him on the throne and you in the dust at his feet and stay there at the foot of the cross in faith, believing until the Holy Spirit shall effect a union of peace in your soul. And until in the language of old Charles Finney of old you he'll say that many went away saying that they were comforted by the living Lord, God's Son, God's Lord, our Lord, the Lord of all mankind, whether saved or lost, dictates the terms of salvation, repentance and faith. In the second place, Jesus says, Our Lord, that he may be our Savior, dictates the time of salvation. You know, it's not so you'll be saved any time you take an ocean. You'll be saved if you're ever saved in the time of God's visitation, when he's seeking men, when the wind is blowing, when the still, small voice of the Holy Ghost is speaking and penetrating into the innermost spirit of you and me. That's the time of salvation. And the word that's used in the day of salvation. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near. The Lord Jesus, says Lord, dictates the time of salvation. Oh, that a climate should come upon us by the preaching of his word and the intercession of his people and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, when men and women should take advantage of that time when the wind is blowing and call upon the name of the Lord for the promises that such as do so shall be saved. The Lord dictates the time of salvation. It's right now, not tomorrow. It's today, not tomorrow. It's when the wind is blowing, not when you make up your mind. The dictation of God's Son relative to the time of salvation. May God grant that this generation shall be visited one more time by an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, is the prayer of this preacher. And then as our Lord and Savior dictates the place of service, the place of service, the day he saves you, he puts you into the ministry whereunto you've been called. There are no spectators sitting on a fence watching a world commit suicide in the kingdom of God. If he saved you, he's given you a ministry. He didn't call you to be a pastor, an evangelist, or an apostle or a prophet, maybe, but he gave you a ministry. You're his witnesses, and if you're not his witness, you're not his. He dictates the place of your service. As a commander-in-chief of the armies of heaven and earth, he decides what little potato patch each one of his children shall occupy. And to be in that particular potato patch, if it's where the Lord summons you and commissions you, is to be in the center of the will of God and to know what it is to have peace and life and joy in this pilgrim journey. Where has he placed you? In the home, in the factory, in the store, down the street, on a farm field. There are no spectators in the kingdom of God. Hear me, hear me! Somebody said, Well, I've been sent to go to Africa. Well, the commander-in-chief can transfer one of his subjects any time he wants to. And I'm lifting up the sound of my voice now and saying, Away with this business that God saves some people, and they just go back to their rocking chair and sit there and rock and watch the world go to hell. No, sir! If he saves you, he puts you into the ministry. Who did it? The Living Lord did it, the King of Glory, the Prime Minister of earth. And if you're not functioning there, then you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord and Savior dictates the times of salvation. He dictates the time of salvation. He dictates your place of service. God pour out his Spirit upon his people that once again this generation shall hear the rushing of the wind in the mulberry bushes, and men shall be stricken down by being confronted with the Living Lord and the power of the Holy Ghost, as God announced one more time his people to proclaim this glorious gospel, is my prayer. And now, here is our announcement. Can you turn in the Word of God, if you have time, this morning to Romans 14, verses 7-9. And from these verses of scripture, let me beg you to give your attention to me as this morning I ask and try to answer the most important question that anybody ever faces between birth and death, between time and eternity. That question is, why did Jesus Christ die on a cross, and God raise him from the dead and put him on a throne and turn the destiny of all the world, mankind included, over to him solely, uniquely, without any rivals? The passage of scripture reads like this. Verse 7 says, For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord, and whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord. And then especially verse 9, For to this end, or for this purpose, to this purpose, Christ both died and rose and revived, in order that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. Why is America full today of men and women who profess to be God's children, profess to be what we call Christians, and yet they are living such unsatisfied and unsatisfactory lives? I tell you, the answer to that question is this. The question of central dogmatic totalitarian authority has never been finally settled in their lives. Every army has to have a general, a navy has to have an admiral, a kingdom has a king, a home has a head. But with what passes for salvation today, men and women with authority divided between them and Jesus Christ, between Christ on the throne and self on the throne, there is no victory. For, my friends, nobody can confidently expect victory in their daily living who has not submitted unreservedly and irrevocably to the dictatorship, the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ. For Jesus Christ died on the cross, not that he might become merely men's Savior. His primary purpose was, in dying, that he might become God's Lord. Lord he was from all eternity, but in that mystery of the word of God, where God became man, came down here as a little baby, as a man in the flesh, absolutely under orders from the Godhead, obedient and submissive to the Father. Under that mystery, the Lord Jesus came and became one with us apart from sin, and lived a life on earth and died on a cross outside the holy city of Jerusalem, was buried in another man's grave, and thank God he didn't stay there. God raised him from the dead and put him in charge of all things. What's all that about? It is that he might be absolute Lord of everything that writhes and wriggles. How does the Lord Jesus Christ save men? He saves men in virtue of his authority that he purchased by laying down his own life. He saves men by becoming the supreme ruler of their lives. He sets up his reign and rule in a man. Dear old Vance Havner, Saint of God, most beloved preacher, said, All I know is when God saved me, I didn't know any doctrine, I didn't know anything much, but I knew that I went away from that experience with a new master. And that's what salvation is. Christ Jesus came and was and did and is all that he was and did and is, in order that he might establish his crown rights to your life and your obedience and your worship and your adoration. He is Lord in virtue of having given himself on a cross. God hath made him to be Lord. He is Lord, and to that end he died. Christ died that he might be Lord. He is Lord by God's decree. He is not Lord by men making him their Lord. God does that. In the book of Psalms we read God's holy decree. Listen to what it says, Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I, says God, will declare the decree. Jehovah hath said unto me, Thou art my son. This day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, the Father says to the Son, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. In the gospel of John, chapter 17, we read these words in chapter 2, As thou hast given him authority over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And in chapter 2 of the book Acts, at the conclusion of that great gospel, the first gospel message preached by the Church, the Apostle Peter, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says in verse 36, Therefore let all the house of Israel know as a matter of fact that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. This is so. God Almighty has made Jesus Christ Lord by his fiat decree. Men do not make Jesus Lord. Jesus Lordship is not a matter of our recognition, it is not a matter of our acceptance, it is a matter of fact. God hath made him both Lord and Savior. Christ died that he might be Supreme Lord. Not only is he Lord by God's eternal fiat decree, but he is Lord because, thank be unto God, he humbled himself and he deserves to be Lord. In that classic passage of scripture in the 2nd chapter of the book of Philippians, we read how this one Jesus Christ, who being the form of God, taught it not properly to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Then the scriptures say, Because of this, God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, yours and mine included, for things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. To the glory of God the Fallen he deserves to be Lord, he deserves to be Lord. God made him Lord by decree, and he laid down himself willingly on a cursed cross outside the city of Jerusalem in the place of sinners, and bought a world that he might save his own. He deserves to be Lord, and then he desires to be Lord. This is holy ground. I do not know exactly how to handle it, but oh, I read the Bible and I find out he delighteth in mercy. He'd rather save you than damn you. He desires to be your Lord. The very heart of the gospel rings crystal clear. He desires to save, he wants people saved. He'd rather bless than doom or damn. His Lordship is something he desires. He wants you to be enabled of the Holy Spirit to gladly bow down and adore him where he is now, sitting on the throne. Oh, his Lordship he desires to be your acknowledged, willing Lord. One day, one day you'll have to bow, one day you'll have to confess his Lordship. Now, by the heart of the gospel shows a loving God reaching out in the behalf of hell-bound sinners, desiring that his rue, his sweet rue, his yoke shall be established in the center of your life, that the will of God may be precious to you and Christ may be enthroned there. Oh, shall his desire be defeated as far as you or I am concerned? This is a question I wish I had more time to penetrate it, your heart with it. I'd rather the Holy Ghost would do it. Jesus Christ been made your Lord. God settled it. He's your Lord. And as your Lord, he's got to save your attention and your relationship to him will determine that. So my prayer to God is that many listening to this very brief message may bow in heart and mind and strength and gladly receive him as the Lord which he already has been made by God of your life and worship him and adore him where he is now on a throne seated at the right hand of the Most High. Please give attention to the words of announcements about our services by this dear pastor. God bless you.