In this sermon, the speaker discusses their plan to distribute 50 sets of 70-hour tapes throughout America to help train young preachers. They express gratitude for the person financing this project and emphasize the importance of reaching young preachers before they develop incorrect preaching methods. The speaker then shares a personal story about receiving an urgent message about their sick child during a preaching event. Despite the urgency, they finished the sermon and rushed home to find their child quoting Proverbs 27:1. The sermon concludes with a story about a 16-year-old girl who confidently declares that she will be saved the next night, only to tragically pass away the following day. The speaker reflects on the unpredictability of life and the need to seize the opportunity for salvation.

I have a friend in Pennsylvania, a dear man that we call a layman, I do not like that term. The whole New Testament is a protest against the division between what we call clergy and laity. I believe with all my heart that God gave five ministries, but I also believe that the day God saved you, he called you to be a preacher, a proclaimer, a herald, an announcer, a gossiper, a witness. See, it's not optional whether a Christian will be a witness, he is a witness. It's not optional whether a Christian will be a light, he is a light. It's not optional whether you decide to be salt, you are salt. It's not optional whether you represent Christ, you are his representative, if you're a Christian. One of the tragedies of what you call salvation today is that we have so many people claiming that they are saved who do not share Christ's passion to get men to Christ. That just can't be. Mr. Phineas said that if you do not live to save others, you will not save yourself. That's one time the man was talking with New Testament authority. That's the reason I say 95% of Baptists are going to hell. They do not share my Lord's passion that sent him from heaven to die on the cross. And you just can't have Christ without having all of him. And you'll be a partaker of his passion if you're ever united to him. This man in Pennsylvania is financing what we call a tape profit school. I am preparing 71-hour tapes, and we're going to get out 50 sets of 70 tapes each. And we're going to have them in use throughout America all of the time. We'll send a set to a preacher if he'll promise to get some of his preacher friends in, and as they have occasion, sit through an intensive study of how to preach the gospel to lost sinners. And I'm giving what little I've learned in 36 years, just trying to share what the Lord has given me. And we thank God for that man who's financing it, and who believes that the only hope now is to get ahold of some young preachers before they get set in the wrong mold, and set them to stripping sinners and pointing this generation to hold your God. And for that reason I'm taking this message tonight, and I rejoice in the anticipation that things are on the rise. It's mighty warm in here, and I wish you wouldn't wait till I get back through my service. I'm very optimistic. I believe there's a tremendous swelling and a tremendous sound of the going in the mulberry bushes. The most pleasing thing to me is that preachers are not cocky like they used to be. Most pastors are desperate. They are utterly desperate. I received a letter the other day from a man in South Carolina desperately in need. Desperately in need. He said, My church is fundamental. So were the Pharisees. My church is sound. So were they. My church is dead. So were they. The deadest thing this side of hell is a fundamental, independent church that has to have Bible study on prayer meeting nights. A poor old pastor has to do it to pass away at a time. His people would go crazy if they had to pray together five minutes. Now, you can cuss out the modernists all you want to, but until some of us can get to where we can have a prayer meeting, here's your foot and a half high. On Tuesday night, I think it was, I spoke to you on the subject, the message of hell. What message to this religious generation of people who with their lips have made some sort of profession of faith in Christ, but who deny in every aspect of their lives this place that's been decreed by God, he's been made Lord. What is the message that the awful severity of God's holy law, which is carried out in a place called hell, what is the message of hell for this generation? We desperately need to face the fact that the sinner will have to bow to the sovereignty of Christ before Christ will grant him any favor. We've left that out of what we call the gospel, and now we have a generation of people that don't even know how to spell the word Lord, much less have ever met him. I've offered a $500 reward for anybody that'll tell me in the New Testament where Jesus Christ was ever offered as a personal savior of anybody. Nobody yet has got the money. Nobody will. He was offered to the Jewish nation as a Messiah. They rejected him. They nailed him to a cross. God made a final answer. He put him on the throne and declared one thing true, whether anybody believes it or not, whether anybody bows to it or not, Jesus Christ is L-O-R-D, Lord. You don't make him Lord. God beats you to it. He is your God-appointed Lord. And you don't accept the Lord, you bow to him. You'll bow at his throne before he'll ever save you. I tell you that. I held a meeting in Roanoke last year. All the brethren who knew my message said, man, that pastor won't take you. But we had a glorious in-gathering of souls. And the pastor came here as my senior and said, I'll never preach the little Jesus I've been preaching anymore. I'm going to preach the Christ of the Bible. And if you preach the Christ of the Bible, you'll have to preach him where he is. Bless God, he's sitting on a throne. This generation knows nothing of an enthroned Christ. They've heard about this little Jesus standing at your heart's door hoping big you will let him in. But he's not standing at your heart's door, he's sitting on a throne. And you'll bow to him, my friends. The question of his sovereignty is going to be settled in your mind before you find him a savior. And the message of hell has something to say about that. The character of God and the glory of Calvary. And this preacher came to me one night and he said, I see it now. Christ was offered to the Jewish nation as their God-given Messiah, their King. Had they received him as their King, they would have found salvation in him as their King. And now he's been declared and decreed by God to be Lord over all. He's as much the Lord of Khrushchev as he is the most devoted Christian that ever lived. The only difference is the Christians tickle to death that Jesus is Lord. And this Khrushchev don't like it. He says, Now, if men surrender, submit to, receive him in the capacity that God says he is as Lord, in receiving him they'll find their salvation. That's right. He's not offered as your personal Savior. He was offered as a King. He's now preached as Lord. We preach not ourselves. We preach Christ Jesus, the Lord. And he's the only one that can save anybody. Thank God he bought everybody on a cross. And he's got you on his hands. And he's going to judge you and send you to hell. Our Savior can take you to heaven. My sinner friend, you better quit sitting in judgment on God's appointment. God's done settled this thing. Jesus Christ is Lord. If you can, you better agree with God. And you better bow to him. You better bow to him. The next night I preached on the subject, the character of hell. And tonight I wish to speak something on the bloodhound of hell. From the 16th chapter of the book of Luke, just this quaint expression, Abraham said unto him, Son, remember. Son, remember. We are told that there were two men, one was rich and one was poor. Strangely enough, both of them died. Now we'd expect the poor beggar to die, but it's hardly to be expected that the rich man, but the Holy Spirit very quaintly says, the rich man also died. He knew it'd be hard for us to believe that a man that had a lot of money would have to face this same enemy, this enemy of all mankind. And both of them, strangely enough, were buried. And in hell, we get a picture of one man, right after he's buried, the Holy Spirit says, this man, the old man didn't even think enough of him to give him a name. The word divine, by which we call him, of course, is simply the Greek word for the rich man. He doesn't even have a name, because God doesn't keep a record of the names of people he sends to hell, only the names that are written in the Lamb's book of life. The other fellow had a name. His name was Lazarus. And both of them died, and both of them were buried, and one of them woke up in hell. And he was in torments, and he was suffering, and he made a request of Abraham that he send Lazarus that he might dip the tip of his finger in water and bring that finger that had just dipped in cold water all the way from the glory land to the regions of hell, and take that finger that had been moistened by water and put it on his tongue. That's how terribly he was suffering. And the answer to that request were these quaint words. And son, remember. Son, remember what? That thou in thy lifetime receivest thy good things. And then the books were closed. And likewise, Lazarus, in his lifetime down here on earth, he received all the evil things he'll ever receive. Now, it's different. Now, this is a little hard to take, but I thank God the scripture, we'll just have to throw the whole book away. Or we'll just have to face it. It's going to be different. On the other side, all the evil things a child of God will ever receive, the heartache and the heartbreak and everything else will be in this short life. And all the good things that the man without God will ever receive, he'll receive in this short life. And it ain't worth it, but it's a bad swap to make. And this man made this plea. And Abraham said, there's nothing for you to do now but spend eternity remembering how it was back down there on the earth. And then contemplating how the situation has been changed. While Lazarus stood outside your gate and the dogs came and licked his sores, now he's comforted. And thou art tormented. And there's nothing on God's earth can be done about it beside all this between us and you. There's a great gulf. And it's F-I-X-E-D. It's immovable. And anybody that wants to go either way to or from across that gulf is unable to. The awful, awfulness that as the tree falls so it lies throughout eternity. That you and I, born out of our own will, will not decide when we'll leave this life for another. But when we do, we go to our long home. Nothing on God's earth will be done throughout the long reaches of eternity to change the condition of the saved nor of the lost. Some remember. There are a lot of things about this I do not know and I pass them by with just mentioning them. Is this a parable or a real incident? I wouldn't know. Is there literal fire in hell? I wouldn't know. There's bound to be some kind of fire. Surely isn't what we would call fire because this man didn't have his body in hell at this time. I don't understand these things. Won't argue about them. Sin causes physical suffering in this life. So I suppose that it'll cause physical suffering in the life to come. But if it does, physical suffering is not very hard to take. They were telling me about some person I think perhaps holds membership in this church who's been wanting to be here each evening. The doctors say her back is crumbling and she's in pain. I know something about pain. Many of you have been there. But physical suffering is the least suffering you can endure. Am I talking to some mother here? Your heart is literally broken about a boy, your boy. That's ten thousand times worse than any suffering of the body. I remember when my wife was at the point of death and the doctors came out of the hospital room and said there's no hope at all. My goodness, everything else in the world appeared as nothing besides that. Is there some man here that your heart's bleeding within you? You got a girl, the daughter of your own flesh and she's spitting in the face of everything that's high. If you have, you are suffering now, suffering ten million times worse than any physical suffering. I guess there'll be physical suffering in hell. I know there'll be spiritual suffering. I'm unable to describe it. I can quote the one verse of scripture in all of the Bible that comes the closest to describing the awful anguish of the spirit that men and women will endure forever in hell. And it comes, strangely enough, in that passage of scripture where we have the most perfect description of what hell really is. And that verse of scripture comes from the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ as he hangs on a tree between two thieves outside the very holy city of Jerusalem where the religious people are going through the service of the Passover that pointed to him. They got hanging on that tree now, but their supply, they do not know it. And I yearn the agony of spirit, not physical, not physical. The physical sufferings of Christ didn't amount to too much on the cross. No misunderstanding. You men could have endured it. But in the agony of spirit came the cry, the heart-breaking cry of the Son of Man. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? That's hell. That's hell. I don't have language to talk about it. I can't even quote that verse of scripture without wanting to take off my shoes and sob or pray. But I know that's the cry of a soul utterly abandoned by Almighty God. And I know that'll be the cry that'll ring through eternity from the lips of every soul in hell, utterly forsaken of God. My God, my God. He hasn't forsaken one of you folks yet. But he gave you the job you work at today. He gives you the breath you breathe. He gave you the water you drink. He gives you everything, oh God bless you, God. But one day, this old book says, he'll absolutely forsake you. That's hell. I was away in a meeting many years ago. I was a pastor, but I was away in a meeting under a tent. A boy came from the telephone and came up to the platform and handed me a telephone message, urging the deacon in my home church, said, if you want to see your baby alive, you must hurry home. I finished the sermon, borrowed the pastor's car, drove all night, hurrying. We had only one child. When I got there, the doctor had gone, and the nurse was standing in the living room, and my wife was in the bedroom with a three and a half year old baby, and I went in. The nurse said, she can't last very long, Brother Barney. And I sat down on one side of the bed, and the wife on the other. My little baby girl, she saw Daddy, and she was in such pain, she couldn't talk. Blood vessels were breaking, and she wiggled her lips. She was a daddy baby, and she looked at me, and I knew what she was saying, Daddy, help me. Daddy, help me. That's what she was saying. I sat there, and watched the death rattle come in her throat, and the view of death on her brow. I held her in my arms, and she gave one last convulsive jump, and died. She died looking into the face of her daddy, Daddy, help me. If I could have, I would, but I couldn't. One day, the only begotten son of Almighty God, in utter submission to the sovereign will of God, and yet a man, he's as much man as you are, oh Lord God. He looked up into the face of the father, and didn't call him father, he said, my God, why won't you help me? Everybody else has forsaken me, I know, but why hasn't he forsaken me? And Almighty God could have, but he didn't. He could have helped his son. He could have pulled him down from that cross, but he couldn't have done it, and kept Ralph Barnett out of hell. My God's son. I wish I could close that door back there and keep you in there till you had sense enough to quit selling your soul for a two-bit sin. Some of you have done it. You're going to spend each day separated from the Holy God just to feed the sinful lust of that old body of yours. You know that if God ever saved you, that means he'd clean you up inside and outside, and you don't want to be clean. You want to follow most of the manhood of our Baptist churches that disgrace the name of Christ by claiming to be products of the marvelous conquering, redeeming, pure, holy grace of God and living dirty lives that just won't work. The same grace that saves a man teaches him. It teaches him that forswearing some things he'll live a holy life in this life. That's right. There'll be spiritual suffering in hell. But tonight I speak a little while now on the fact that there'll be mental torture in hell. Son, remember. Doctors tell us, and I guess you know what they're talking about, that every three and a half years our bodies completely change. You young preachers will listen to old man Barnett tonight. You ought to be a different preacher entirely every three and a half years. Keep studying and praying and preaching. If you preach the grace of God it'll mellow you and glow you. If you preach legalism you'll fall at the point of your preaching. But we ought to be brand new preachers and brand new Christians about every three and a half years, more and more like unto the Lord. They tell us that every particle of my body that you see now wasn't one off three and a half years ago. In other words, I haven't got the same brain I had three and a half years ago. I've had several different brains according to the doctors. I guess they know. You see, this body's dying and growing all at the same time. Isn't that right? And I guess they know what they're talking about to do. But there's one thing certain. This man, the rich man, died. Next place we hear of him, he's in hell. His body's still in the grave. But he's in hell. His brain is in the grave. It's beginning to rot. And go back and the whole business of the man will just be a little handful of dust from which it was born. His brain is in the grave, but his mind is in hell. Son, remember! Son, remember. God's blood hell. Perishing. Crushing down. Never leaving. Helpless sinners in hell. Son, remember. Son, remember. Remember what happened down there on the earth. Remember, my God, what an awful thing this bloodhound of memory will be. If a man could shut the memory of what might have been out. But instead of being shut it out, about all a man will have to do in hell, get him a fishing pole and fish in the lake to burn it to fire and brimstone. Remember. Remember. Remember, my God, you'll never get away from what happened down here on this earth. Son, remember. That thou in thy lifetime receivest thy good things. Now it's reversed. I want your leave to take a trip tonight. I'm going to ask Abraham to lead me in my imagination. I'm going to let Abraham take me by the hand, take me down into the regions of the damned. And I want us to see and hear a little of what's going on down there now. Abraham, in my imagination, lead me through the corridors of the eternally damned. And I'm startled by a multitude of people who are saying, Open the door! Open the door! And I hear them knocking. Oh, he said, they're the people of Noah's day. He said they're trying to get Noah to open the door. See any Ark down here? Oh, he said. Indelibly fixed in the memories of those people. And they can't get away from the preaching of righteousness for 120 years. And the warnings of judgment that come, that fell from that preacher of righteousness lip, and they lived in it day and night. And they didn't want anybody reminding them of God's righteousness. And he preached in as far as anybody could find. Never got anybody to believe his message, but he kept on tacking away at the old Ark and saying, Every place is unsafe except inside of this lifetime building. But nobody believed him. And he preached on, and he preached on. I deprecate these preachers today that measure everything by visible results. And they make out like that they're spirit-filled in all they've got to do. So they hacked inside the city limits and a revival break out. But I think, oh, Noah was spirit-filled. He never had a convert, but he did preach what God told him to preach. And God got glory out of it. To the praise of the most devoted saints is going to turn out to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. And I still say that God got glory to himself. When he condemned scientists, tell us how it's so or not. They tell us that there were as many people lying on the face of the earth in Noah's days as there are now. Nearly three billion souls. God sent to hell by way of a flood. God did it. I didn't do it. God's a holy God. God's a holy God. They remember how old Noah came and said, just 10 more days now, boy! Like folks do today. One day, God told Noah to get his gang and get inside in the dead. And God shut the door. Meanwhile, Noah couldn't open. And the floods came. Oh, my soul. I prayed over that scripture more than any scripture in the Bible. Noah, being warned that things not yet seen, move with fear. Oh, Noah said, God said, it is bound to come to pass. Nobody believes that judgment's coming, but God said, today, yes! I wish we believed that we'd move with fear. And I hear him screaming, open the door, open the door, open the door! And passes by and says, children, remember. And we pass on by. We're walking along a little ways in the corridors of hell. And I see a man just running up and down saying, take it away, take it away, take it away! And I say, Abraham, what on earth is that? Who's that? Oh, he said, that's Herod, the ex-king of the Jews. I said, what's he doing? I said, he's trying to get somebody. The head of John the Baptist is not here. It's in the memory of old Herod. You can't forget. All he does is run around trying to get somebody to take the head of John the Baptist away. So he won't have to see it. And remember how God sent a man to preach to him and put his finger on his darling saying, Herod, quit doing this, that, and the other. But there's one thing, one sin usually damns a man. Your rebellion heads up somewhere. And he held on to that. And you know how he and his wife got into a fight and put on a feast. And then he got drunk and he promised her and went out and laid old John the Baptist's head down on a stump like he would a turkey goblin and chopped it off. And she went inside and gloated over it as the daughter danced, bound by the cords of sin. Ladies and gentlemen, you better listen to me. The day you make a treaty of peace with any sin, that's the day you are damned to hell. Christians are not perfect, but the day you can indulge in any known sin and not flee from it and repent of it and weep over it, that's the day you seal your deal. And there's one thing old Herod wasn't going to give her. That was his licentious wife whom he'd had another man kill so he could have her. And now he's in hell. One sin. If you offend the law in one point, you're guilty of all. That's what that means. Man's rebelling and heads up. I'm talking to you. You wouldn't want to go to hell, but there's one thing in your life you're holding out and Jesus Christ is not going to be Lord over it as long as you say anything about it and that's one thing. Don't damn your soul to hell. That's one thing. Just one leak in the boat, brother. We pass by this man screaming for somebody to take the head of John the Baptist away. And Abraham says, Son, remember. Son, remember. We pass on and I'm startled by a man running around rubbing his hands. He's trying to get the blood of Jesus off his hands. I said, I don't see any blood on his hands. It's in his memory. It's in his memory. He remembers how he called for a basin of water and washed his hands and said, I'm free from the blood of this innocent man. Moral coward. Wasn't willing to stand for what he knew would right. And he thought he could play innocent and take some water and wash the blood of Jesus off his hands and instill on them in his memory. He's in hell tonight perished by the memory of the time he turned the Lord Jesus Christ over to be crucified. When he knew he was an innocent man. And Abraham passed by and said to Pilate, Son, remember, we're walking along and a little 16-year-old girl said, my God, get out of here, get out of here, get out of here. I said, I guess you do. Everybody in hell heard about Rob Barnett. That little girl just goes around all the time. Quoting Proverbs 27 and 1. Oh, snuff thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day will bring forth. She was present in Arkansas one night when the Holy Spirit was pleased to take charge. And all over the building sinners were falling, prostrate on their faces, all over the congregation, seeking and crying out to God. Christian people were rejoicing, sobbing, shouting, singing all at the same time. There on the fourth row of seats on the inn stood a 16-year-old girl and she made a regular pool of tears as they flowed out of her eyes. She stood there with her hands on the seat in front of her until the veins stuck out. People couldn't help it. They spoke to her. The thing just got out of her hand. The Holy Spirit had taken charge. But no good. After the service was over, she's still standing there, still holding on to that seat. And I made my way to her and started to say something to her. I said, don't say anything to me! I said, I'm going to be saved tomorrow night! You've been listening to the preachers. You're going to be saved any time you decide to. I'm going to be saved tomorrow night, but not tonight! I'll be saved. And God or somebody gave me Proverbs 27-1. I said, okay. But the Bible says, boast not thyself of tomorrow. For thou knowest not what a day will bring forth. And I turned and left. And she left. The next morning, at exactly 10 o'clock, that 16-year-old girl was a star high school basketball was a star of the team. And they were practicing. And she was running, I think you call it dribbling, down the floor. She got right exactly in the middle of the floor. And she gave a great cough and fell across. And she was stone dead when the coach and the other pupils got to her. Tomorrow, she didn't get saved. Tomorrow she went to hell. And she's in hell tonight, quoting Proverbs 27-1. She'll never get away from it. Boast not thyself of tomorrow. For thou knowest not what a day will bring forth. The awful thing about hell will be men and women that will never get away from the memory of the love of God in some sense that he has pity and goodwill toward all men. God so loved this old world. Oh, the love of God. Jesus didn't die to get God in good humor. He died because of love, God's love. To spend eternity in hell remembering your ability against an all-out surrender to hell who's your Lord but who still wears in his hands the print of the nail and whose side is still riven by the spear and whose brow is still specked by the print of the crown of thorns. And you would not have him reign over you. You lived in God's world and flaunted God's decree and said God says he's Lord but he's not going to reign in my life. That one who bought you out of love, out of the marketplace desires to save and rather have pity and rather show mercy than to show wrath. You'll spend eternity in hell remembering the love of God that you trampled under your feet. A cowboy in West Texas went to the swamps of Louisiana to visit relatives and there contracted the peculiar type of fever they have down there and as soon as he got able to travel he got on the train went back to the high country in the plains of West Texas but he's still so weak he couldn't work. He just got on a saddle pony and started riding around custom of the reign he'd ride up about sundown and they didn't see many people and the owner would say lie down stranger I'll take care of your horse go on and make yourself at home. And he pulled up one afternoon about sunset at a dugout in West Texas he used to build still housing had money enough to build a hole in the ground put something on it called a dugout and live in it. The next morning the man of the house said stranger I know you've noticed you're sort of poorly got anything special to do? And the cowboy said no I'm just riding around trying to get the sun back in my old bones before I go back to work. He said take it right kindly I'll be stranger if you'd stay here and mind the house and take care of my wife he said I've just got to be gone tomorrow and tomorrow night won't be back till nearly noon of the second day and he said I just can't leave my wife here alone would you stay here? Why? Why the stranger said why I don't mind but do be glad to help you out. So the man of the house got on his pony and rode away that night about midnight the cowboy was awakened by the howl of a local wolf and then it howled and howled and howled and then he heard the woman of the house screaming and before he could come to his wits he could tell the woman had got up out of her bed out of the dugout and then he heard her screaming he climbed into his boots and trousers and went out and down that horizon in the west he could see a long way to the moonlight he saw a hobo wolf loafing along back of it this woman and he could barely hear her saying I'll kill he saw she was a stranger he ran to his pony and finally caught the woman he had to slap her in the submission she was just crazy and like a little baby he carried her in his arms back and laid her in the bed chafed her wrist her brow until she cried herself to sleep the next day the man of the house came back the cowboy before he left he said I guess I ought to tell you what happened last night and he did and the man of the house said I owe you an apology I guess strange I'd hoped it wouldn't happen while you were here but he said I have to tell you about my wife said I'm having an awful hard time with her he said a year and a half ago I was away and my wife was outside of our little dugout bending over an old rug board washing the clothes and our little two and a half year old girl playing around mother's feet and once in a while wife would look and see she's alright and then all at once the wife heard the snarl of a lobo wolf and she turned quickly just time to see the lobo wolf grabbed the little girl by one leg and like a woman who acts first and thinks later she did the only possible thing she just flung her body as far as she could tried to catch the wolf but she missed him and when she got up on her feet the lobo wolf was trotting down the prairie dragging the little girl by one leg he said when I got home my wife was gone my baby was gone we organized the neighbors he said two days later he found my wife just wandering around completely apparently mad oh she would say he said we never even found the scratch of the clothing of the flesh of our little two and a half year old girl and then the man of the house said preacher said stranger from that hour of this every time my wife hears the howl of a lobo wolf she remembers she remembers and she loses her mind I look you in the face my friend inhale every remembrance of the love of God who for our sinners drew a plan and hung his son on a cursed tree every remembrance of the love of God will haunt you throughout eternity you'll never get away