In this sermon, the preacher discusses the role of John the Baptist in biblical history. He highlights the similarities between the society in John's time and the present day, emphasizing the prevalence of perverted religion and willful defiance of God's commandments. The preacher warns against making issues with God over trivial sins, as winning such battles could lead to damnation. He shares a personal anecdote about a young girl who made a bad choice by prioritizing a trip to the movies over attending church, emphasizing the importance of focusing on eternal matters.

John the Baptist understood that God does not give his best to those who would trifle, but he gives the Savior to those who long to be saved. He understood that the ground of a nation must be plowed, or the ground of an individual must be plowed, that the heart must be broken up and melted before any lost and ruined son of Adam, born in sin and conceived in iniquity, with his heart a seedbed of hostility, and out of his throat poison, ashes and snakes, poison in the air of God. He understood that until such a one had had his heart broken and melted, he could be brought to the water, but he would not drink, and he would not welcome the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus seems to have gone to school to John the Baptist, if you pardon that hint of blasphemy. For when he comes along, he says, the citizens of my kingdom are going to be characterized and called blessed. One thing about them that will stick out, he said, blessed are they that mourn, and mourn in such a way as to be comforted. The Lord does not conceal that when he comes, he comes on mission bent for the purpose of giving healing to the brokenhearted and making the fat, fat, the people who are fat in their own estimation, to grow grossly fat and go on to hell. He does not pull his punches, does my Lord, when he says, as scratching a blow at the complacent self-satisfaction of men who were religious enough in order to defend their religion, they murdered the Son of God willfully. He did not pull his punches when he said to them, you'll just have to go on to hell. I didn't come to call the righteous, but I came to call sinners to repentance. John the Baptist understood that every manifestation that we call sin is just a sprout that grows out of an evil heart that hates holiness and hates God and is hostile to God, and that we the sinner drinks iniquity, and iniquity in the Bible means rebellion. He drinks it like water, and he understood that sin in its deep essence is rebellion against the throne of Almighty God. That said, it's to treat the Almighty with contempt, it's to live in God's world as if it were your world instead of God's world, it's to renounce the God who owns you by creation and redemption, it's to say, come here, I want God and no God, Bible and no Bible, what are the consequences? I'll rule my own life, I'm the master of my fate, and I will not bow to God's king. So John the Baptist came as a voice, his mission was to prepare some to receive the Lord. He's just a voice, a young preacher, hear me, for God's sake don't go in the pulpit with your questions, don't go in the pulpit to apologize, go in the pulpit with a broken burdened heart as often as you can, recognizing that you're just a voice, that you're not the one who cries to men, repent. God does that. There are two people here in this text, there's a man by the name of John, oh, he's got the voice, but he's a vessel, and through him the living God cries in the wilderness, repent, repent. Mount the pulpit of the Sunday school class with a radio, with authority, utterance, and demand that all who hear you bow to God's Lord. Nothing short of that is preaching, just a voice, just a voice, and the voice is the vessel through which God Almighty commands men upon the pain of suffering his eternal vengeance and wrath, repent, repent, repent. God says in the Old Testament, I hewed them out, I got me a great big double-bladed axe and I hewed them out with my prophets. We need no other kind of preaching except prophetic preaching, now, crying aloud, sparing not, just as voices, and seek as best we can to get somebody to stop long enough and lay the flag of this danger down yonder who said so. God says so. You're listening to God. The greatest miracle I've ever witnessed is sometimes this poor little old voice is hollering and screaming and spluttering and spattering, and somebody hears from God, and they say, that's God, that's God's truth, that's God's truth, that's God's truth. No man's ever saved apart from that. Somebody said a preacher in these terrible days ought to be a cross between a billy goat and a mule. They ought to be kicking it one end and butting it the other all the time. That's right. Yesterday, did you ever hear old Bud Robertson's prayer, O Lord, give me a backbone as big as a saw log, and give me ribs like the sleepers under the church floor, put iron shoes on them in galvanized breeches, give me a rhinoceros hide for a skin, a wagonload of determination up the gable end of my soul, and help me to sign a contract to fight the devil as long as I've got a fist, and bite him as long as I've got a tooth, and then gun him until I die, amen. We need somebody. Such a preacher was John the Baptist. John couldn't save anybody. He'd just cry aloud, God do it, clean him. It's a pity. He didn't love souls like us, you know. He couldn't just win lots of people. How long your converts stay one? Some of them stay one a day. John the Baptist couldn't win anybody. His job was to just be a vessel, and God would command men to repent. If anybody got one, God would win them. God would win them. John came with this task, a holy task, in days much like ours, where history is repeating itself. He found Israel gripped in the tentacles of a monster with three awful steel hooks. He found the nation going to hell by way of perverted religion. He found the nation going to hell by way of willful, willful, not ignorant, but willful defiance of the dictum of a holy God. He found the nation going to hell because of the lust of the flesh. I don't know any other pathway a man hardly can travel except one of these paths to be sure that when judgment does come, he'll have to stand before God and deal with God's holy law without anybody to plead for him or to stand in his stead. I won't talk a little while tonight on God's command to repent. Repentance in the Bible takes free form in the first place. John the Baptist came and called men to repent. The book of Hebrews reminds us that we are to leave some first principles. One of them, built upon them, is repentance from dead works. John the Baptist cried a God death through him and came to a nation that was depending on its dead works, and murdered the Son of God because he had crossed them at that point and told them that if they were Abraham's children, they'd produce Abraham's faith and Abraham's works. And they had neither his faith nor his works. They were dead works. How many people am I speaking to tonight that are going to split hell wide open trying to make it to go around your own righteousness? My soul, old John the Baptist came to a bunch of people, and even when the Lord ministered, they were guilty as long as Paul tasted least of going about to establish their own righteousness so they'd have whereof to glory. And while they were busy begging on themselves and trying to make a case for themselves, they made one little mistake. They did not submit to the righteousness of God. And the righteousness of God is not an attribute. It's a person. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, how many people am I preaching to tonight? I want to preach to a thousand. I'm glad to preach to two that have religion. But it hasn't changed yet. It hasn't changed yet. Think how desperately steeped in religion the people of John the Baptist and the Lord's day were, zealously going about observing the feast of the Passover, while having washed their hands clean because of their willfulness, they took the Passover lamb, the Lord, outside the holy city, couldn't crucify him inside, too religious, too nice. During Passover week, they nailed him to a tree. If sin has slain its thousands, religion today is slaying its tens of thousands. John the Baptist cried, repent, repent. That man or woman, that boy or girl who thinks it's well with his soul and he has not experienced a change that keeps on changing until you conform to the very express image of the Lord Jesus Christ will miss heaven and gain hell. Oh, this monster. Sunday morning, blasphemy, that'll be present in the pulpits, too many of them in Pasadena and Houston next Sunday morning, where men and women are made to feel comfortable as they go through a ritual. They're just as comfortable today as those nice people were going through the Passover ritual, while the Lord Jesus Christ hung on a cursed tree. Oh, what a monster, perverted religion. They had succeeded in changing the Judaism which was divinely given until the Lord will call it the Jews' religion. They fixed it up themselves, and it enabled them to sleep at night and murder the Son of God, all in defense of their customs and their rituals and their traditions. Have you been changed? The acid test of anybody's perfection of faith. Have you been changed? That's the acid test. Have you been changed? With a change that didn't stop, but it just keeps on. Have you shown up now? These folks haven't. John the Baptist said repent. They didn't do it. They didn't do it. And the Sunday morning church members of Pasadena won't be called to repentance either. They'll go on to hell, clutching their crucifixes and their creeds and their traditions and their ritual and their everything except Christ in you, who destroyed you. From the time he comes to dwell until the time that he calls you home. Change is everything he touches. With a change that keeps on changing. Have you touched Jesus Christ? And from him into you has flowed power. Power. I was a church member for 11 years before God saved me. And the only thing that kept me out of hell was the fact that I soon learned I knew nothing of being in contact with Jesus, for whom comes all the power there is between the conduct and character of men and women. That's the living Christ. Nobody's got any power but him. He got his from the Father. There's life in him but there's no life anywhere else. You can't get life standing afar off believing about him. You've got to touch him. Like the poor little woman that suffered at the hands of many physicians and was nothing bettered. She pressed through the mob of religious ites and touched the human environment. And immediately the Lord said, who touched me? The crowd said, why, silly to ask, who touched you? All this pressure around you. But he said this was different. He said dynamite. Dynamite went out of me. Dynamite went out of me. Where'd it go? It went to her, brother. There's power. Not simply in the blood. There's power in the Son of God who shed his blood. All authority is given unto him. You've got to touch him. Your creeds, your doctrines, your rituals. Only the living Christ can change a man. Repent of every place of wickedness you've got. It doesn't bring life-giving, flowing power. God says it's difficult to live a Christian life. The scriptures don't say so. The scriptures say it's utterly impossible to live a Christian life. It just can't be done, brother. The scriptures talk about Christ in you. The scriptures talk about Christ in you. That's it. You can't make it, brother. You can't make it. When John the Baptist came, he cried, repent. God said, repent. Just use his voice. Repentance in the second place is toward God. Repent of every confidence in everything you've ever done or ever hoped to do. For the best thing you ever did is a filthy rag in the sight of God. Repent to God. What does that mean? Ladies and gentlemen, there's never been but one controversy that God Almighty has had with men and women. The controversy is this. Who is Lord? That's the controversy in the Garden of Eden. God Almighty placarded his sovereignty, his right to rule, the fact that he's God. He put a spike in it. He said, there's a tree over there. Don't you eat of it. If God's God and you're a man and you're his creation, he's got a right to say, don't do that. I'm the master. Don't you do that. I'm Lord. Don't you do that. If you do, I'll kill you. If you do, you'll die. Die, and thou shalt surely die. And from that hour of this, that's been the only issue. There's been but one issue. God says, that man, that the took, hung on that tree outside the city of Jerusalem, between two male factors, and put his body in a grave that belonged to somebody else, wrapped it in clothes that belonged to somebody else, and perfumed it with spices that belonged to somebody else. God says, I declare him Lord. Ain't no use to fool around with some other little tadpoles if this is here in faith. This is it. This is it. Repentance toward God. He says, Jesus says, Lord, you say I am. Somebody's going to win that battle. I hope you don't. If you do, you're going to hell. Brother, you talked to me about a salvation that leaves a man in control of his own life. Jesus didn't die to purchase that kind of salvation. The Lord Jesus Christ came down here to do just one thing. That's to restore the sovereign rule of God Almighty that was challenged in the garden of Eden. And he's going to reign until he does, brother. And the only fellow that's going to lose bucking him is the fellow that bucks him. This is settled. I done looked in the back of the book, brother. Got the answer. Every knee's going to bow and agree with God. And every tongue's going to confess that God's been right all the time. That Rothbard was created to be governed. And that I am governed either by the sovereign that the scripture calls by the name of S.I. in sin, or the sovereign redeemer. There are many youths that play mumbo-jumbo and get everything else straightened out. This is the controversy. It's age old and it's still raging. You and I happen to be living in a time when men in high places, from the president down to the pulpit, are engaged in rebelliously, lawlessly saying to God, we will not have this man to reign over us. And in ignorance sets willful rebellion. Unbelief in ignorance, it's refusal. It's willful. I will not bow. I will not. That's what happened when John the Baptist preached. He said, the Lord's going to come. He came. And they looked him over and crucified him. And they was afraid maybe the letter got misplaced and they took old Stephen. The same crowd that Stephen could indict with these awful words, ye are just like your daddies and your granddaddies and your great granddaddies, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost. And they stoned him to death. And every time they cut him with a stone, they said, when you get up there, tell God we haven't changed our mind. And we will not have. The servants sent a messenger after him, as old Stephen, and said to him, God, we haven't changed our mind. He's still not going to reign over us. No, sir. Honey, you're going to split hell wide open because there's a rotten spot in your life. You're rebelling against God and you're saying, I will not come under to the rule of Christ in my life. You're not going to go to hell because you don't understand the doctrine of election. You're going to go to hell because there's a sore spot there, brother, a seed of hostility and rebellion against just one thing, the rule of God's Lord in your life, in your life. Repentance toward God, what does it mean? I agree with you. I agree with whose Lord? Jesus. Whose Lord is he? He's mine. Even if he sends me to hell, he's mine. He's my Lord! God made him a Lord. Repentance to God doesn't invite men. He commands men under the pain of eternal death. Bow down, sinner. The pastor is telling me about somebody who said, if I walked that aisle, they'd kill me. Well, I don't want you to die, so just wait a little while and let God send you to hell. Do you understand that? Oh, my soul. That old sinner, he said, Brother Barnes, I'm not ready. He's telling the God's truth. He's not willing for the Lord Jesus Christ to have him lock, stock, and barrel and order him about to seem it good in his sight. He's not willing to say, though he slay me, yet I will trust him. He'll go next Sunday to hear some pussyfooting preacher preach that God's in your hands and he's waiting to see how the verdict will be, and he needs you to come to the rescue of poor little Jesus and send you on to hell. You're not willing to bow to God's Lord, even though he sends you to hell, are you? And if you get there, you're going to go to hell. He's Lord, Brother. He deserves to be Lord. When he hung on that bloody cross, he wasn't giving a little Sunday afternoon matinee. He is buying this world lock, stock, and barrel. He is gaining the perfect right to be God's prime minister of his government until this old world is brought back where it was under the rule of Almighty God. That's right. That's the controversy. Repentance toward God. I'm not God. You are. I can't run my life. You run it. I surrender. Come out! Repentance looks in the third place toward the evil, lustful desires of black-hearted, rebellious-hearted men and women who breathe their defiance of God's holy love. Such attitude was headed up or illustrated very well in the days that John the Baptist and the Lord inherit. God pity a nation when, like Israel of old, its head is rotten. In the days of Saul, when lawlessness abounds, old David will be advised to hit for the hills. Not safe for anybody to be around when the head of the government is rotten. Old Herod was rotten. He went out to hear a fellow named John the Baptist preach and call men to repentance. He didn't leave anybody. He told the soldiers to quit being so brutal. He told the folks to quit stealing so much money. He had a word right down with the people of living for everybody. He told the church people of that day they were whited sepulchers, white on the outside and black on the inside, ravening wolves. Call on the generation whose daddies and great-granddaddies were snakes and said, Who warns you to flee from the wrath to come? When he was preaching, the people were going out into the wilderness to hear him. Old Herod heard about it, and he went out. The scripture says he heard John, and he feared him. Oh, God, give us some more preachers that people are scared of. I go places, and the people call the pastor by giving him. God, give us preachers at least trying to represent God to strike fear in the hearts of this familiar, godless generation. Scripture says that old Herod feared John, and he quit this, and he quit that, and he quit the other. He didn't mean a thing. One day, the crowd was gathering, and the meeting was going good, and some of the disciples of John saw that Herod coming and said, Brother John, Herod's coming today. Maybe you better tone your message down a little bit. John got up and pointed his old arm boney finger right in Herod's face and said, You killed your brother so he could steal his wife, and it's not lawful what you're doing. Old Herod quit the meeting. He put his finger on that awful sore spot of defiance that was in that man, and it cost him his head. But refusal to tear that out cost Herod his soul. All lawlessness ran like water downhill in that day, and how it does run today. The parade of flesh, the desecration of everything that's high and holy is the order of this day. John the Baptist would say, Repent. Repent. God's against it. You're bucking God. You're bucking God. You know, it's almost comical if it weren't so tragic. Multitudes of people make an issue with God, make a point of controversy over a ten-cent sin. And when we remember that whatever you make a point of issue with God, if you win that battle, you're going to go to hell. How tragic to try to beat God. It just can't be done. Little sins. If you are unwise enough to make it a point of controversy with God, that one little old insignificant sin will damn you to hell. Let me illustrate what I'm talking about. I was in Detroit, Michigan, one Sunday morning. A worker was standing at the door just shaking hands with the people, and a little 16-year-old girl came along. She said, We're glad to have you. Do you know the Lord? She said, No. Well, we're going to be hoping and looking for you to come back this evening, hear the word of God. The little girl said, Oh, I can't do that. Can't do that. And the worker said, Well, why? She said, I've got to go to the picture show tonight. Now, I do not make issues of these things, because the issues are much deeper. But if you make an issue out of a good thing, and you end the battle, you're going to go to hell. I don't know. The Lord doesn't lead me to get into these things much, because old sinners say, Well, I don't think it's any more harm to do this than to do something else probably isn't as much harm. But if you make it an issue, if you end the battle, you'll have to go to hell. Well, I didn't. The worker told me about it, and that night I preached, and I just happened to remark about the little girl. I didn't think she'd be there. I just didn't preach, and I said, There's a little 16-year-old girl that made a choice. She said to come to church tonight. He said she couldn't. She had to go to the picture show. I said, It's a bad choice. Bad choice. Nobody but a blind person would talk that way, I said. You must be awful blind to things eternal. Of course, I didn't dream she was there. Well, after the service was over, they had a baptismal service, and it turned out the lights and the pastor baptized the people. I was sitting right down there. I heard somebody moving down while the lights were being low, and directly somebody sat down behind me, and directly somebody punched me on the shoulder, and I looked around, and there was that little girl. I didn't know who she was, but I found out. I said, I understand I'm blind. I said, Who are you? He said, I'm the girl you was talking about. I said, Which one? He said, I'm the one that said I couldn't come and hear the gospel tonight. I had to go to the picture show. I said, Well, I believe you are blind. I believe you are blind. That's all to say it. Directly the lights were on. People were telling me goodbye. It was the last night of the meeting. I looked around, and there was that little 16-year-old girl. She wanted to talk some more. She came up and said to me, She said, Do you think it's any harm to go to the picture show? I said, I don't know. She said, Well, what do you think about it? I said, I don't think it's any harm. She said, I'm going whether it is or not. Uh-oh. That's when you make an issue. I said, Well, go ahead. I won't get anybody to stop you. I didn't think a lot of things, I guess, would be worse than that person. I don't know. But that's your choice. So I turned around and told somebody else. I looked around. Here's that little girl. She still wants to talk some. She said, Preacher! She said, If I got saved, would I have to give up the picture show? I said, Sure I would. Since you've made an issue. Brother, you're getting controversial with God. I don't care how little it is. If you win the war, you're going to hell. You see it? I'll never forget that little 16-year-old girl. And this will shock some of you, but I'm going to tell you exactly what she said. She said, I'm going to go to the picture show if I do go to hell. She made an issue of it. You see it? Oh, you can't afford to get in a controversy with God and raise an issue. For if you raise the issue, God's going to break you there or send you to hell. Yours, Ralph Barnett, preaching to you. In Illinois, one Sunday morning, a stepmother, two stepdaughters, both almost, one of them about 20 and the other about 18. As the crowd was gathering Sunday morning, she watched and when I came in, she made her way and she said, Brother Barnett, I've got my girl here. She'd been trying all during the meeting, couldn't get them. Yeah, there were. Oh, her heart was just in her throat. And she said, I'm going to be praying, Brother Barnett, you preach. I'm going to be praying, praying. And I preached and we stood for an invitation. Back there sat those two girls. I later found out who they were, and the older one, she broke. Yeah, she came running, claimed she got saved. And the Spirit of God sought her, subdued her. They continued singing, nobody wanted to go home. Directly, that mother, stepmother was sitting beside the two girls. Well, I'm down here now. The mother put her arm on the 18-year-old girl. You can imagine kind of what she said. 18-year-old girl shook her head. Directly, this girl who claimed God saved her, she got up off her knees, she went running back. And she put her arms around her sister, and you could hear her pleading with her sister. Nothing happened. People still wouldn't go home. Directly, that mother and that sister began to wiggle their fingers at me. And I just had to, they wouldn't quit. So, yeah, I went. I went back and faced the girl. She was weeping. She was doing more than weeping. She was sobbing. And I talked to her a little while, and she said, Preacher, I can't be saved. I said, Why? She said, I'd have to give up the dance. I hadn't said anything about the dance. I said, you would. She said, yes. See, she made the issue. She made the issue. She made it. And I don't want this reformation. I want the Spirit of God to put this finger on things. And I beg you not to make an issue on the least thing with God if you hope for your soul's salvation. And I pressed her because she made the issue. Of course, I would not beat people. I said, yes, since you brought it up, you dead sure have to give up the dance. And I won't shock you too much when I tell you exactly what that girl said. She said, I'll see you, Jesus, in hell before I give up the dance. I didn't say it. She did. Some 16 months later, passing through there, and I happened to write the passing through. And if I had time, I won't stop to say hello. And when I stopped at the parsonage, a good little group of people were gathered. They had some cake and coffee. The Yankees got to have cake and coffee. And I had a little fellowship. And there was a beautiful young woman with a little baby in her arms. And she came and said, you remember me? She's happily married now, mother of a little baby. That's the girl that claimed the Lord saved her that morning. After a while, the stepmother came around and in the course of time, I said, where's the other girl? She said, she's in hell. She's in hell. Of course, she didn't go to hell because she danced. She went to hell because she made an issue and said this one thing, Jesus Christ cannot touch. And if you'd have the least little thing that you're holding out, if you win that battle, you're going to go to hell. Brother, it come clean. It fell down the coin right at that point where you're arguing with God right now. I hope you don't win it. If you have to tear your heart out, tear it. But drop that seat, that point of rebellion and come under and say, Lord Jesus, I surrender. I can't make it any easier. May the Holy Spirit not heal anybody's wound slightly tonight. And I come now in blood-stained Jesus' sake instead and demand that you repent. Repent of what? Of the one thing that you're holding out and say, Jesus cannot lay his hand on it. If you don't drop that, he'll never save you. He never will. This is all a moment. I'll meet you at the judgment with the truth of it, whatever that point is. That is your controversy with the will of God. Jesus Christ came to plant the rule, the will of God in the hearts of this people. You'll just never be one of this people apart from me. May God have mercy on this congregation as we come to this awful moment of invitation. While we stand in a moment and sing to make it easy for you to get up where you are, drop that rebellion and openly agree with God and come under in full surrender everything you know. Tomorrow you'll have the perfect right to speak again. You'll have to drop that, but that point of rebellion, drop it, drop it, drop it, drop it right now or run the risk of going to hell. That's the truth. Oh, God, have mercy tonight in this awful moment of decision. In Jesus' name we pray. I invite you to surrender 100 percent everything and everything you know about and yourself. Just come clean with God while we sing past me, now, gentle Savior. Hear my humble cry while on others' ardent passings do not pass me by all calling. While we stand and sing you're invited to come and surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ. God bless you. Here's a man. Come on. Drop it whatever it is. We don't have to press that. You ought to ask for baptism. You have a right to. You're invited to come. But we're pressing the battle now for somebody who in utter utter commitment wherever the issue has been joined I hope you don't win. People all about you're winning. I hope you don't. I hope you're able right now. Don't go to hell for a 10 cent sin. You've raised the issue. There are people here tonight who've raised such issues and I know it. I could call some people's names and I'm not going to do it. And I'm entreating you. You raised it. That's your fight. You said, God, you can't touch this. I don't care how nice it is or how little it is. You can't do God that way. It's all or nothing. It's all or nothing. Let's sing another verse. I saw you coming. She's been going through agony for a week. All the travail. I don't know her condition. But a preacher in this town advised her not to get excited about the doctrine of election. I don't know why they're excited about that. We haven't made that an issue. That's not an issue of me. It's God's son. She's in terrible travail. Boy, I wouldn't be that preacher. Not me. But that's what we're up against. Religion that doesn't change people. Don't let it go harm you. You're all right. Maybe she is. But better let the Holy Spirit do that. The Holy Spirit's touching you at that point that you've made an issue. That means he's got his finger on you, brother. He's got to come out. That's what it means to commit yourself. You can't say, Lord, I want you to save part of me, but I'll run the rest. No, sir. He's Savior of all and not at all. We press it again. Don't let anybody kid you, brother. Don't you Don't you think this is a game of marble pegs? Souls are at stake. And we wait for you. There's a young man here tonight who's made an issue. He made it. We didn't. Don't go to hell. Don't go to hell for that. Don't you do it. Commit yourself to the Lord tonight. Come on. Come on.