In this sermon, the preacher discusses the damaging effects of the current form of recreation on our souls. He draws a parallel between the Roman Empire's downfall and the state of the American church, emphasizing the need for a vital connection with God. The preacher highlights the story of a woman who was desperate for healing and had exhausted all other remedies. She ultimately found her solution in Jesus, who offers abundant life. The preacher urges the congregation to seek a genuine encounter with God and not settle for anything less.

I read tonight from the book of Mark, uh, at Mark's gospel at chapter 5 and verse 25, an old, very familiar passage of scripture. And from the passage of scripture, I want to ask a question tonight, the best I can, with all of the unction the Lord will give me. And I want you to hear me the best you can and elect yourself a committee of one to face this question for yourself, since nobody else can face it. The scriptures read at verse 25, after this wise, and a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, when she heard of Jesus, came and depressed behind, and touched his garment. For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall behold. And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague. And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes? And his disciples said unto him, Thou seest the multitude strong in thee, and you have the nerve to ask who touched men. But he looked round about to see her that had done this thing. But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth. And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole, go in peace, and behold of thy plague. Now this simple question, you've heard it many times, it's been asked of you many times, forgetting the other fellow, may the preacher tonight, as quickly as he may, ask you, face this question one more time, have you touched the Lord Jesus in faith? Until do things have happened to you, if peace has come and your plague has disappeared? Surely that's an important question. That's important enough to brave this inclement weather. That's important enough, no matter what circumstances everywhere, since nobody else can answer it for anybody else. This is a vital question. This can't be done by proxy. This must not be settled by assumption. This is the question. Have you touched Jesus by faith in such a way that although not with an audible voice did you hear, but you heard, you heard the living Christ speak peace to your soul? And you experienced redemption, and redemption is deliverance. Be thou made whole, be thou made whole of thy plague, of thy plague. Surely this is it. By the example of this woman, somebody said, and she didn't have to touch his clothing. She didn't have to go through that particular way of doing it, but she didn't know it. She thought she did. And the Lord humored her, and she touched him with a different kind of touch than the people who were thronging about him. She touched him in a way that drew from him dynamite, power, the power to heal of her plague inside, give her peace outside, and give her peace inside. By the example of this woman, have you touched the Lord Jesus in faith? By the invitation of the gospel, come, says the gospel, in faith to my Savior. Come through him this very hour. How tender his mercy, how boundless his power. It needs but a look from the heart to him who himself freely gave. Now lift up your eyes unto Calvary's cross, and find him still mighty to save. By these, the example of the woman, by these, the invitation of the gospel, by the need of your own soul, I ask you the question afresh, have you touched him? You say, preacher, you mustn't ask me that. That's my business, but it's all about business. We are members of the human race together, and we must ask ourselves, and everybody else we can, come to the right facing of this vital question. None but Jesus Christ can do helpless sinners good, and this woman's cure is my cure, and there is no other. For in this day of much, much religion, in this day when everybody's a Christian, and thus the statement is, anybody is not the statement of a crank, in this day when we are fighting a battle, to have a place to stand on where Christ reigns, this is not a silly question, for nothing short of real and vital contact with the living God in Christ will meet the needs of your soul, or the demands of almighty God. My Lord Jesus Christ summed up his mission in saying, I'm come that you might have life, not death, but life, not improvement, but life, and the only way on earth that a person can have life is to be switched off to the source of life, and the living Christ is the one in whom life is. This woman was crippled by sin, and yet she got to the one who could help her. Sin had lost its appeal to this woman. It had found this woman out. We have reason to believe she'd lost her home, she was suffering from an incurable, loathsome disease. Nobody could get around her, touch her, but we're certain she'd lost all her social life, perhaps she'd been cast out of the synagogue. She was finding out that the way of the transgressor is hard. This crippled soul touched Jesus. He was a very much discouraged person. My, look at the remedies he'd tried. Augustine it was who said, thou hast made us for thyself, and we'll never find rest till we rest in thee. He was talking about something that's in the human heart of every human being. We're made for God, and she's trying remedies. She's been to many physicians. She'd taken all of the cures. She was nothing better. Ah, the day. I wondered, Brother Barnard, I wonder if he'll see the salvation of the Lord before he dies. When men are tired of thinking they can find rest in pleasure, rest in pleasure. One of the scandals of people who claim to believe in sovereign grace is that it's known all over the Southland. I mean it wherever I go. People have got the impression that makes us loose livers, and the way the Sabbath is desecrated, and the way this generation's gone stark crazy over everything that's called pleasure, of every description. God knows I have to bow my head in shame, all my soul, to turn the grace of God into an excuse to violate the holy things of time. I wonder when this people, I'm worried to death. I am worried to death. I guess the sun will come up in the morning without it, but I am worried to death about our youngsters. It seems that Papa and Mama think all on God's earth they must have is a good time. I wish we'd get so poor that some of our youngsters would have to dig taters in the summertime, and pick cotton, and carry papers. I don't know what all else. I'm scared to death of these little leagues. They got them from Grandpa down. I guess they're good. They ain't as bad going to jail. They ain't as bad going to drunk, but they're getting drunk, but they reflect the fact that if we don't watch out, we're going to raise a bunch of kids that think there ain't a thing on God's earth to live in, except to have a good time. Now maybe I won't charge you nothing extra for that, and I'd speak freely now so I have no youngsters coming on, but I tell you right now what we all need is to be shut up to hard work from the time we're knee-high to a duck. Find out that life means something more than the gratification of this old body, and I wish the people who dare to say that we're trying to witness a recovery in America, or the preaching of the grace of God, I wish we had a little iron in our blood, and a little sacrifice in our makeup. Oh my soul, how we could do with it to ignore this doctrine that we seek to do so. People are trying to please you now. Maybe old brother Barnard's wrong there, his way I was raised. I was a grown man when I was six years old. I never knew what it was to have all this time. I wish all you people could move to the farm or something. And give your children hard back-breaking labor to do. It might take something out of them. I tell you the way civilizations have gone down up to now is when the Sabbath has been made a holiday, and men have given themselves to the gratification of this old body. And we ain't too, I guess there's a middle ground. Maybe you got better sense to know how to come to it, but we done gone too far that way. I hope I live to where there's something more to life than having a good time. I don't know. The Bible, I think, talks about a wholesome recreation, but what we got now is a damning wreck-creation. It's wrecking our soul. It's vitalizing the whole outfit. And we'll remember that the Roman Empire crashed exactly about one inch down the road from where American people inside the church already find themselves. Well, I guess that's too tough, but it's a God's truth. All this pleasure, mad age. I tell you, this woman was discouraged. She had run out of remedies that did work. I hope I live to see the day when God shuts this generation up to where the wells they've dug don't give water anymore. Maybe somebody will seek to press through that crowd of people seeking everything except the vital contact with the living God. They'll press through like this woman did. She said, I got to get to him. She said, I tried everything else, nothing happened. She was determined. She was determined. It would seem to this old crazy preacher, this is about as hard a day as the world's ever seen for a man to get into living contact with the living God. My, just look at what you're going to have to plow through. Yes, all this gang of people strong in the Lord just falling around. And they're jostling with him, but that isn't the touch of faith. And pressing through that jostling multitude comes a woman with a deep knees and she's with a deep faith. If I could just, I'd be made whole. And she plowed through, she plowed through. Oh, my soul, my soul. We cut out all the old methods, we said we were wrong. Now we're hung up. We're going to have to get God's method yet. I remember some of the younger preachers, they said, well, we'll never give another public invitation. That's fine. And I've had some of the rest of them, we'll never do this. We're not going to do this. That's bad. The way the other people are doing it, that's bad. I think that's right. Now, we've come about far as we can go finding out what ain't right. We've got to face the fact. We've got to face the fact. And that takes the presence and the power of the Holy Ghost to cut people to where they've really got a need so much that whether you give an invitation or not, whichever method you use, they'll say, well, brother, I don't care about getting down the front aisle of that, but I've got to get to Jesus. And I think we've been shut up to that there once. I tell you right now, I tell you right now, nobody but the Holy Ghost. And he came to us and we've got him bottled up some way, I don't know. He's not making Christ manifest in our assemblies, God knows. We'll never hear men with a deep need pressing through and screaming out just to get into the saving presence of the Son of God. We go deeper in the Holy Spirit than we've ever dreamed we'd have to go. We got along without his presence just about as long, I think, as we can. I'm a candidate for the Holy Ghost. I was in a meeting since last I was here when a white-haired member of the congregation asked me one night after service if I had time to go down to this place of business he wanted, if I didn't mind, to give me a cold drink. He said he wanted to talk to me a little while. He got down there and he fixed me a drink. And then he began to weep. He said, Brother Barnes, I've been a member of this congregation 40 years. He said, I've never heard anybody cry for mercy in that church building in 40 years. He said, I tell you what, I believe that some old reprobate in this town, a change would come over him and he'd start seeking the Lord. He wouldn't quit until he got to it. I'd think I'd be ready to die. Say, thank you, Lord, mine eyes have seen thy glow. We must not go on without thy nice little whatever it is. Mr. Wet Eyes must come back to God's house. It's sure, Brother Barnes, preaching to you. For there has never been a time on this earth when unsaved men were determinately seeking God, apart from a great seeking of him on the part of his people. They go together. I haven't any alibis. I just look you and myself and tell you it's time for us as God's people come back to the mourners' bench and get to where our hearts can cry, the God and Lord of the harvest. I want to hear sinners that just will not take no for an answer. I've got to see it or I die. This woman said if I can just touch his clothing and see a person through, and bless God she was delighted she got to it. You can have your message, I don't care. I want to get to Christ. I want peace that only he can give. I want wholeness that only he can give. We talk about being redeemed by the blood, but redemption means deliverance. It means that captives are set free. It means deliverance. This woman was delighted. She touched him and the Lord said, Who touched me? How sensitive! The disciple said, What you talking about to all this crowd? But he said it was different. He said that was a different touch. Work your theology out if you want to. I don't want to go to hell trying to unravel this theology business. I just preach what little I can find in it and let somebody else unravel it. I ain't got sense enough to. But the Lord said, Somebody touched me in such a way that dynamite passed. I know a little bit about what he talked about. I know just a little bit about what he talked about. And I look you on this warm Sunday night and as God knows, you know this old preacher loves you. You said good to me. I can't preach to you very good because I love you too much. But I tell you right now, I tell you right now, dynamite got to go out of you. You just can't be a representative of Jesus Christ without it costing you power and virtue and dynamite and blood. That we call serving the Lord doesn't take enough out of us to ruin our bodies and set our minds, break our hearts. Do any good for a sinner to touch us? Touch us. I say it with all reverence, but it's the God's truth. It takes the blood of Jesus and your blood to keep a man out of hell. It takes the sacrifice of Christ. You better listen to me. And the sweet savor of a lie laid down at his feet to represent Christ in this world. It does. There's agony here, honey. There's got to be. There's walking the floors at night when everything's dark and you want to die. Of course, it seems like God. You can't measure up. None of us can. What we're living in now without it costing you your lifeblood. I know what I know. Agony, agony. This woman touched the Lord. Something went out of him. Something went out of him. Power went out from him. Ah, my soul. A hidden, hidden. There's nothing that'll make a Santa Ho drive the plague of his leprosy away, but the power of Jesus Christ in his life. And it's got to come out of Christ into the center. This is not foolishness. He works through human means. Power's got to come out of us. I have people come to me, used to at least, and they say, Brother Barnard, thank God you saved me. It's telling the truth. I did. I did. As my father sent me, even so send I you. It takes his blood and our blood. It takes the agony of transfusion. Power, power, power. Who touched me? Yeah, I felt virtue. The Greeks deunimized power. Go out of me. Go out of me. God knows I don't want to be put on a shelf. I don't. I buck this religious world. I meet with preachers. I try to open doors, see them close. I try to preach as much truth as I know how in unfriendly places. I tell you what's the fact. I don't want to be put on a shelf. I don't know about you, but these desperate days, I want to find out as I've never found out before, how to enter in to being a representative of Jesus Christ. I want to learn how power, dynamite, can go from me to poor old dead sinners. You can call that blasphemy if you want to. That's the God. I'm not in favor of looking for alibis. If nobody else in the world, if nobody else is interested, don't hardly think that's so. I want to be a representative of the living Lord through whom he can reach people to the day I die. Don't you? Dynamite went out from me. She was delighted. She touched not a doctrine or a creed, but the source of power in life. She touched in faith him who can make men whole and speak peace to them. She heard him tell her the work was done. If you can convince me, you wouldn't try, but if somebody could convince me that Christ isn't alive, I quit all this foolishness. It's hot tonight. I'd rather be in a swimming pool or somewhere physically, hadn't you? Yeah, let's just forsake ourselves, cut all out this foolishness out. If all we've got is a creed or a doctrine, let's cut it out. But if we have a living Christ, if we found it, if we know it, if we feel his presence, God knows. If that's so, that's so. Let's keep on. The man that many went, not let anybody on earth or hell tell them that they have the peace of God except the one who gives it. But if you can convince me that the living Christ cannot deal with men today until men know they've heard him speak and they felt his touch. If he's changed that much, he's not the Savior the book talks about. But if he, in his living reality, still can tell them, go thy way in peace, be made whole of thy flesh. What I'm talking about is reality. Not believing about, but experiencing the power of the living Son of God. I've given up any expectancy of any perfection in myself, and I'm not very hopeful about you. But I do know one thing, folks. I do know one thing. For 11 years, I was a nice church member, and I had no, I wasn't hooked up. I didn't have any contact with a power greater than myself. And while my response is not so hot, I know that back yonder some years since, in a locked room with my face in the Word of God, I felt the touch of Jesus Christ in my life. I know it's real. I know it's real. Praise God. I know, I know. And knowing it for myself, I can't be happy unless I keep digging into men and women made out of the same clay I am, subject to all the imperfections and everything else I am. I can't be happy, don't want to be, and I don't want you to be, without pressing men and women for an answer. Have you come into real, vital contact with a living God? That's the answer. That's the answer. Life begets life, thank God. Thanks be unto God. I want, since God does not know, I, God knows the future and I do not, I want us to stand and sing my little chorus, not mine, but I think maybe I introduced it here. And I want it to serve as God's invitation, if it please him, reach out and touch the Lord as he passes by. I believe he is alive. I believe that men and women must not stop searching and seeking and reaching and screaming and hungering and thirsting until power from hell flows into your life. A power that's greater than you, a power that will not let you go, a power that makes you understand repentance for so many times. This one who will not let one go, he just looks and with Peter we weep bitterly. Contact with one who will not let us go, will not, will not. Reach out and touch the Lord as he goes by. Let's stand and sing it, Brother John. May the Spirit of God heal within your heart. Here is my prayer. A fresh baptism of life, of tears, a new total baptism of surrender to thy authority, an absolute baptism of concern. Ladies and gentlemen on this hot summer night, I don't believe that this generation in America have got into seething vital contact with Christ. And this is no time, this is no time to surrender. This is the time. God give us power. God give you power. God break your heart. God break mine again. God bring us to where we'll pay the price. We'll not take no for an answer. We'll stay waiting on God till he brings back our tears and our compassion to where God bless your heart. We'll find out that they that sow in tears bearing precious seeds shall reap the joy. God, I don't believe the church people of Ashland and Mass have plowed through and touched the living God. I want him myself. I pray God for my own life and heart and for you. God touch us again. Let's sing the chorus one more time and then God bless you and goodbye. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 13th Street Baptist Church singing, singing for your own heart's need. And after I got where I stay about two o'clock in the morning, two young students for the ministry came, was almost half crazy. He had something wrong with his eye, was he could not shed a tear and I preached that night on tears. I think the biggest scandal of so-called Christianity is our carelessness. I believe it with all my heart. I wouldn't touch the doctrine you folks say you believe with a 50-foot pole. I couldn't cry in my heart. I wouldn't. I believe they'll kill you and everybody you touch. You don't learn how much it costs to be able to cry in here. That young man was about to go crazy. He said, Brother Barnard, I haven't shed a tear since that day I was born. I can't cry. He said, I can't sleep. I can't sleep. I wish you couldn't sleep too, good brother, unless there's an ache, a tear, a shock in here. That's where it's coming from. God, cocaine generation, you set us to be your representative. Lord, God, give us yet other chances and show thyself long-suffering and merciful. Lord, set us to plowing up the fallow ground in our own hearts. You've told us in the scripture to afflict ourselves and mourn. This is our job. Lord, give us hearts, hearts a little like thine, a little like thine. By the Holy Spirit, we beg tonight that when we come yonder to the judgment, we'll not be ashamed of being together this little while. And this little ought to cover him on this hot Sunday evening. Speak to our hearts and they will have listening ears and hearts. For Christ's sake, the best I know how, I ask it for the glory of God's Son's name and his gospel, we pray. Amen. Thank you for being so patient. Thank you, God.