In this sermon, the preacher reflects on his forty years of preaching and the impact it has had on people's lives. He emphasizes that he cannot save anyone, but believes in the power of God to intervene in people's lives. The preacher talks about the two weapons that believers have: God collecting the tears of his people and the prayers of his people. He confidently declares that he knows how the war between good and evil will end, with Jesus Christ ultimately victorious. The preacher challenges the audience to choose which side they are on and reminds them of the importance of recognizing the need for punishment of sin and rejoicing in God's judgments.

I read verses 1 and 2 of the last book of the Bible, chapter 19. And after these things, I heard a great voice of much people in heaven. And they were saying, Hallelujah. And they were crying, Salvation, and Glory, and Honor, and Power, unto the Lord our God. They are ascribing these things to him. They finally found out what they tried their desperate way to believe in this life. Salvation was of God. That all glory was his means to share it with no other. And that honor and power were attributes of God Almighty. And if anybody has any salvation, it's a gift. If he has any share in the glory of God, it's a gift. If he has any honor, it's a gift. And if he has any power, it comes from God. These folks shouting Hallelujah. But the main thing they're shouting Hallelujah about after these things, when the wind-up has come to pass, when the war is over, when the last battle has been fought, they're shouting Hallelujah over something that is the most difficult thing between the eternities for any human being to shout about now. The old-timers hadn't been privileged to live in this giddy day where salvation has been divorced from discipleship and where people are going to split hell wide open depending on something they say happened to them 30 years ago instead of depending on a living Christ and a daily walk with him. The old-timers knew we weren't plumb saved yet. The old-timers never dreamed the man could get to heaven if he absented himself from what they call the means of grace. Wonderful now that we've improved on the old-timers so much. People do not need to attend divine services. Whoever wrote the book of Hebrews certainly was behind time, but he thought it was terrible. He said not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but rather encouraging, exhorting one another so much the more as you see the day approaching. Strangely enough, that verse of scripture that the Bible teaches us to have so much trouble with follows it. For if we sin willfully after we receive the knowledge of the truth, our fathers could tell us what that meant. But these folks that have got saved and they do not need to sit under the preaching of the word, they're going to split hell wide open. They're sinning willfully. They are making of salvation what the scriptures know nothing about. They are the folks who crucify Christ afresh and put him to open shame. And they do it by neglecting the means of grace. That's a tremendous thing. That certainly is a reflection on this Sunday morning iris we're suffering with all over America. These Sunday morning Christians are going to go to hell fast. They'll kick up dust in the devil's face. Folks that honor God with their presence one hour a day, they know nothing about the salvation that comes from God. To have a touch of the succine of glory, the gift of God, to be empowered from him. The old timers knew we weren't plumb saved. They thought that there's something for us to do day by day. They'd read in the Bible about work out your salvation. Your own salvation. They didn't know anything about this generation of church members that got converted 30 years ago and said goodbye to Jesus and said we'll see you in heaven if you make it. And the only salvation they can talk about is one they said occurred at some time when they had a dream or a vision or shed a tear or said a prayer and had a feeling and called that salvation. The old man A.D. Mews, whom I loved as no preacher in his day, used to say immediately, somebody start telling me about his experience of salvation. I know I'm listening to an unsaved church member. Tomorrow night we're going to speak on what is the gospel, and that's the bad subject. It's who is the gospel. The gospel is Christ. And a man saved if he has Christ. Not an experience, but Christ. But Christ is alive. And if he has Christ, he's got a living Christ. And if he's alive, so are you. There'll be daily communication. But back to my subject, the old-timers knew that our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. But they knew nothing of what to call salvation today. And so they could enter into a little bit of the subject tonight, and they could understand how difficult it would be for a mother to shout hallelujah when she watches God send her own boy to hell. That'd be awful tough, wouldn't it? A man walked up to me in Texas the other day, and he said, Brother Barnett, do you reckon it's so that this generation of Christians have not seen the last of this generation of lost people? He said, reckon we'll have to witness against them at the judgment? I said, we sure will. And at the judgment, God's people are going to be on God's side, and they're going to be able to join this hallelujah chorus, saying hallelujah, what you're shouting about. Verse 2 says, For truth and righteousness are his goods. For true and righteous are his goods. They're all passed now. After these things, the patience of God has worn out. The grace of God has been suspended. And the soul of God is naked. And just the day has come, and God's people are shouting hallelujah. For what God does is true, and what God does is right. And they could quote with Abraham years ago, the judge of all the earth must do right. We don't believe it now. You and I happen to be lived in the silliest, most sentimental, mawkish generation God ever had to put up with. It's a pity that man up in Shady Gap or whatever it is, Pennsylvania. We're going up there pretty soon. My wife is glad that's over. She's afraid they'd catch her. We're going pretty close to where that man abducted the young woman. Shame that fellow got killed. They ought to capture this, and then millions of people in America probably would sign the petition to let him off. This is a day. This is a day when the almighty God doesn't have the right to exercise authority. This is a day when God Almighty is under bad repute and terrible attack because he's not running this world like this silly generation thinks it ought to be run. And against that awful background, God's people need to be brought face to face again with the proof that God Almighty's judgments are true, and they are right, and that God ought to be against sin, and that God ought to punish sin, and that God ought to visit men's sins with the terrible pangs of eternal hell because God is holy, and sin is unholy, and one of those has got to win. The word of God tells us there are two sovereigns. That word sovereign is a big word that means whatever you want it to mean. It simply means two absolute rulers. And the word of God personifies sin, and speaks of sin as if it were a person. And the book of Romans we'll read where sin did reign, and it did, and it does, in the life of unregenerated men and women. Now something's happened, and grace reigns, not apart from, but through righteousness. Grace takes charge of a man and changes him by establishing the rule of God's righteousness in his life, and grace isn't a substitute for holiness and righteousness. It is the great master hand that establishes Christ's rule in a man's life, and that's what salvation is. And there's a war going on, and the Bible warns us that every man and woman, boy or girl, that's been privileged to be a member of that precious body for whom Jesus died and purchased with his blood, to be one of the people of God, or members of the body of Christ, of the snatched out, called out men and women who've not been appointed to wrath, but to God's glory. The Bible is crystal clear that while that's the greatest privilege that's tied to hell or heaven, it also brings tremendous responsibility, the responsibility of not driving our stakes too deeply in this life, remembering that we're just camping down here, and we're on enemy territory, and we're under orders, and our king is the Lord Jesus Christ, and we'll not give comfort to the enemies of God. And we're not to show the yellow flag and turn our backs and settle down and just take the spirit of this generation with all this criticism of just one attribute of God. Everybody would fall head over heels in love with God tonight if he weren't holy, and if he didn't demand righteousness. The Bible warns anybody that God saves that he didn't save you to say everybody have to say amen. He saved you to make you an ambassador, to live down here on unfriendly territory, and to be on God's side in the war. There's a war going on. I do love to turn to the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians. I need to turn to it every once in a while and find out how the war is going to end. When I was a kid, I started school when I was four years old. My dad was a schoolteacher, and I cheated. And I graduated from high school when I was 14. I was a smart little fella, and I was ahead of my time, you know. And got algebra, and that's tough. I don't remember just how it was, but somehow or another I got a hold of a key. I know none of you folks ever did this, but I got a hold of an algebra key. Those problems sure are easy to work if you got a key. Learn the answer and then go back and apply it, you know. Oh, I like to read in the Bible and find out. I got a key, brother. I done looked in the back of the book. I know how the war is going to come out. We are one day nearer today than we were yesterday to the final victory of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. All hell can't stop it coming, brother. He must reign till his enemies have made his footstool. And he's going to subdue this world. He's going to win the war. I like to look in the back of the book and find the answer, brother. Give me a big jar of star navy spit and tobacco and spit ambidextrous in the devil's face and tell him to go back to hell. He ain't going to win. He's not going to win. I know how the war is going to end. Which side are you on tonight? Which side are you on tonight? I want to ask you two or three simple questions. Do you believe God ought to punish sin? At the judgment of God, people are going to say, Hallelujah, you did right. Hallelujah, your judgments are true. This isn't just to try to fill up a little time. Listen to me. God knows. Listen to me. If there is any group this side of eternity that needs to run from a lawless spirit, that needs to run from the temptation to turn the grace of God into an excuse for unholy living, it is the people who have been privileged to learn that salvation is by the grace of God. Listen to me. God only knows what a fool a Christian is to get too much interested in this world. Its spirit is of the devil. Its prince is Satan itself. Its spirit crucified the Son of God and would do it tonight if it could lay its hands on him in the flesh. Oh, my soul. When's Mr. Wet Eyes and Mr. Amen going to start coming back to God's house? When are we going to begin to face up to the fact that we're representatives of a thrice-holy God who sent his Son to these fifth generation generations and mine? God, that Son, had healed him to a cross because of our wicked hearts and sent a messenger by the name of Stephen after him and said, we haven't changed our mind. We still will not have this man to reign over us. When, oh, when, is God going to have a generation of people who profess to love him, who are on his side about this sin question and about the fact that sin is going to put God out of business or God's going to put sin out of business and God's people are to be crystal clear and there'd be no doubt about it which side we're on. Which side we're on. You think God ought to send people to hell? You think so? You think sin ought to be punished? You want God to win? You want anarchy to sit on the throne and say to the Lord Jesus Christ, you want to get rid of God and let every man do that which is right in his own sight? America's in the niche of that tonight. And if there's any institution this side of the hill that's just a bunch of lawless rebels, it's the average church. I speak to God's truth. We know nothing of authority and respect for it. God help us. This is the time to take sides about whether sin is against God for it is against men and whether God can stay God and not win the war against sin personified, reigning in homes, in nations, in churches, in civilizations, and in human hearts. You've heard the story of the Civil War days when in the state of Kentucky, not very far from here, Kentucky, some of the Kentucks were Yanks and some were Johnny Rebels. And one time they were having a little skirmish out in the cornfield and some of the Johnny Rebs and the Yankees were shooting at each other in an old grand ball. The Yankees had killed her husband and four sons and had come raided and taken everything off the farm that was loose at one end except the poker that she used to stir up the fire. And she looked out the window and saw the little battle going on and she pulled her specs down off her fart and put them on her eyes and fastened her bonnet, put her skirts up with one leg, one hand, and so she could walk and got that poker with the other and skedaddled out the front door and down the front yard and opened the little latchy gate running down the road and the neighbor came walking along, said, where are you going in there? Said, you're playing fool, don't you see? There's a war going on out there. Said, what are you going to do? Said, I'm going to get in on it. He said, why, you can't put in a war with a poker. She said, by the grace of God, I'll let them know which side I'm on. Oh, which side you on? Listen to me now. Making more money than you ever made in your life. Living like hogs the whole outfit of it. Listen to me. Listen to me. Where in God's name did we forget there's a war on? And it's awful wonderful not to have to worry about going to hell because Jesus said my sins are taken away. But it's also tremendously challenging that he's left us down here as his representatives. God knows I wish God could turn our hearts and our churches into sackcloth and ashes. Where in the name of high heaven is real measuring up to what it means to be ambassadors of Jesus Christ. Pleading with men to be reconciled to God. Whatever our condition, God's people one day are going to be present at the judgment when two things are going to happen. First, every unsaved man or woman, boy or girl that's brought to the judgment bar of God is going to have to say amen to his own condemnation. God Almighty will have a few million years if it takes that for eternity we'll all bury the road. It can take a few million years to examine each case. No man will spend a long eternity in hell until he himself has made a willing amen to the judgment of God. And another thing is going to happen. God's people witnessing God disposing of men and women who live in God's world as if they were God instead of God. Men and women who know God are going to have to be witnesses and they're not going to argue with God. They're going to praise him and say hallelujah for true and righteous are thy judgments. The Bible tells us there's a time of judgment coming. The Bible tells us it's an appointed day. The Bible uses language something like this, to me belongeth vengeance and recompense. Their foot shall ride in due time for the day of their calamity is at hand and the things that shall come upon them make haste. The Bible, quote, will have words like this, because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised them from the dead. The time of that judgment is said to be a day when sinners shall be punished. We're told in the word of God the Lord, knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. This time of judgment is described as a day when God shows his power and none can successfully resist. The prophet Ezekiel in language make your hair stand on your head will say, can thine heart endure or can thy hands be strong in the days that I shall deal with thee? The Bible speaks of the character of this time of judgment. Last night I pointed out that you live in a generation that doesn't believe that God's going to judge sin. And tonight I come back and say what a tremendous responsibility it is to know on the authority of God's word that judgment's just around the corner and see men plunging over one another's backs see who's getting the hands of an angry God the quickest. And there you stand helpless but by and you can't stop them but God knows you can warn them with tears and you can't let it get out on you that you actually believe that they're headed straight into the hands of a sin an angry God, it's a fearful pain to fall into the hands of a living God. The Bible speaks of the character of this judgment to which all men will be brought and we're one day nearer to it today than we were yesterday. In the book of Isaiah God will say according to their deeds accordingly he will repay fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies or he'll say behold the Lord will come with fire and with his chariots like a whirlwind to render his anger with fury and his rebuke with flames of fire or the Bible will say therefore will I also deal in fury mine eye shall not spare neither will I have pity and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice yet will I not hear them in that awful language awful language the Bible speaks of witnesses at this judgment the men of Nineveh will be there and they'll rise up and condemn the men of Christ on day the folks in Sodom and Gomorrah haven't seen the last of them they'll be at the judgment says our Lord they'll rise up and condemn the cities that heard the Lord Jesus preach and did not repent the Queen of Sheba will be there at the judgment she crossed the world span to set the feet of a man by the name of Solomon behold a greater than Solomon has come and men put him on a cross now we haven't seen the last of the folks in Sodom and Gomorrah they'll be at the judgment we haven't seen the last of the cities that Christ pronounced his woes upon wherein he done his mighty works one year in the days of his flesh they'll be at the judgment the sons and followers of Korah you remember God opened the earth and sent them to hell without time to pack a suitcase they'll be at the judgment scientists tell us perhaps three billion people were destroyed and sent to hell in the flood and they'll be at the judgment oh people don't believe this but after these things I heard the voice of much people saying hallelujah for true and righteous survival God's going to do right God's going to catch up with everybody nobody's going to escape I saw a great white throne and him that sat upon it behold it grew more than the earth heaven and earth sought to run away but there was no place for them to go saw men stand before God God's people are going to be there then we shall see that sin should be punished and rebellion for that then we shall share God's infinite hatred of sin the scriptures speak of God as this language thou art of pure eyes and thou canst look on sin or behold iniquity and we'll look at it like he does at the judgment then we shall see and believe that God's right when he declares that men that commit sin are worthy of death then shall we be called upon to rejoice the book of Deuteronomy says rejoice O ye nations with his people for he'll avenge the blood of his servants and will render vengeance to his adversaries you know if I believe what I'm preaching tonight I expect my hand on my head and yours would too ladies and gentlemen being a Christian ain't all that you are we've got to witness as people are sent to hell we've got to stand up and be counted and say amen to God's judgment I remember when I was a student in the seminary I went out to a little town called Dundee, Texas a little old cow town the host of meetings there's a man there that owned about half the county his name was Jock, J-O-T, Jock Smith he's a hard-cussin' hard-drinkin' rough, wealthy cowman he hadn't darkened the door of any place where the gospel preached in thirty-some odd years strange as it may seem for all intents and purposes he had a godly wife and I remember that during that meeting the poor woman got to where she couldn't go any longer she had been worrying everybody in that country and everywhere else for years asking them to join in prayer for her I don't know what it looked like but about all on God's earth weapons we've got left for a child of God is prayer and she just wore herself out praying to God to save that old devil of a husband and during that meeting the poor woman got to where she couldn't eat she didn't decide to fast she just got to where she couldn't eat we had day services and night services she'd show up and when they'd have the request for prayer pray for my husband and she got in such desperate shape she had to be brought to the services, she never missed couldn't sleep, couldn't eat wasn't put off finally they had to bring her in a cot they had to bring her in a cot and she came her husband didn't show up the last night of the meeting came they brought Miss Smith down I'd see her there on the couch now she was almost dead looked to me like I had begged her to try to eat something something or she could do sob about her husband God knows I wish we could have a little of that some more you better listen to old brother Barney you can't get the job done by just trying to pound truth in people it just don't work that way isn't that right something else something else God knows our truth must be saturated in prayer and I preached that night I stood up to preach I saw a booted spur on the front step and I kept looking and John Smith had showed up the first time in 30 odd years and he got there and he couldn't get in and he stood there and he stayed there one booted spurred boot on that step and listened to me preach and I preached the best I could that night and directly we stood for an invitation and somebody whispered to that woman that John was there and she got two women to help her up and while we were singing they kind of half drug her to the length of that little building and old Jock didn't run and that poor little woman went back there and faced her husband she got up strength enough to put her hands on his shoulder I don't know what she said to him, she was too weak to say anything out loud she just sort of stood there and wept and directly old Jock took his hands took her wrists put them off of himself turned her back over to the two women turned around with a curse went to his cow pony rode off into the night guess he went home got his jug, two days later they found him one foot in the stirrup with his brains all dashed out as his pony wandered around on the plain and that little woman will be at the judgment and she'll take sides with God and her tears will be gone and she won't be praying for her husband she'll be saying hallelujah God ought to be sent to hell it's either send Jock to hell or God to have to keep hallelujah hallelujah true and righteous are thy judgments so far as I know I can't save anybody neither can you this September I'll be preaching 40 years I can close my eyes now hear the sobs of wives for lost husbands little children who didn't understand much of what they're talking about yet they break your heart crying for their loved ones between now and the time when we're going to say hallelujah over the judgments of God we have two weapons left in the Old Testament the Bible talks about God taking a bottle and catching the tears of his people in the New Testament God talks about taking little vials and putting the prayers of his people in those vials I believe that I believe that I was in Rocky Mountain North Carolina in the fall of 1947 in what's called Citywide Meeting I was preaching five times a day the first three weeks I was awfully busy answering criticism people coming to me trying to straighten out and all that and then the meeting broke I was awfully busy dealing with soul and I kept getting a letter about every other day from some dear woman saying I'm listening to all the radio and I'm sick at bed I can't come out I sure would love to see you and I kept promising tomorrow I'll go see her but I didn't go I had fairly good excuse and I didn't go the last night of the meeting came and I was sitting watching the crowd gather and a young woman about 35 came down to me had a five dollar bill in her hand and she said my mother wanted you to have this little gift said you remember getting letters from a woman saying she's sick and she's hearing you over the radio and hoped you'd have time to come see her and I said yes said I'm sorry I didn't go said she went to be with the Lord this morning at 11 o'clock and said before she died she had me get her pocketbook take this five dollar bill and said now daughter tonight my body will be in the undertaker and I'll be in glory and said you haven't been to the meeting I want you to go and listen to the preacher and I want you to take this five dollars and give him and tell him who it's from tell him I wish I could have seen him but I'll be listening to him preach tonight I kind of believe that and I told that story sort of to close my message and we stood and started to sing and the crowd had overflown the tent that last night way out country somebody began to sob directly he came splitting down the middle aisle through the sawdust big old 240 pound boy about 40 years old and here he came and just fell sprawled face hard in that sawdust the whole body just racking with sobs directly I went down there and dealt with him the best I could I don't know what happened to him but that's why I stood up and confessed Jesus Christ as his Lord looked like the glory of God settled on his countenance guess whose boy that was it was that woman many a night she'd shed tears she thought they were wasted they weren't wasted God caught them in his bottle many times she'd prayed for a miracle to happen God to arrest that wayward boy on the Damascus road to hell looked like her prayers were in vain she had many glory but a little while the Lord was fooling around in his pantry saw the tears that woman he'd stored up and the prayers she'd made for that boy I think he just said I'll make her first day in glory especially good he just uncapped that bottle of tears and took one out let it drop it split that boy wide open and he dropped the bombshell of her prayers and that did the work and here he came I can't believe that folks I can't believe I can't believe it with all of my heart oh while we wait for that time when we're going to be on God's side we're going to say your judgments are true and righteous we've got the weapons of concern that's tears and prayers prayers I want to sing my song tonight past me not old General Saver Brother Henry if you will let's stand to sing