In this sermon, the speaker focuses on the message of the early Church and the reason for preaching the gospel. He emphasizes that the one message of the Church is the reason for having services and proclaiming the gospel. The speaker highlights the importance of bowing to Jesus and receiving the Holy Spirit for salvation. He also mentions that one day, all mankind will bow and confess the Lordship of Christ. The sermon emphasizes the need for repentance and discipleship in order to receive the power of God for salvation.

In the fourth chapter of the second letter that Paul wrote to the congregation in Corinthians, at verse 5 of that fourth chapter, we find the battle cry of the early church. They just had one message, and that one message is the reason we are having services, the reason time is being bought on this radio station, the reason the gospel is being proclaimed, the reason some of God's people, God's people all over the country are on their faces before God, pleading with him for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, realizing that God, when he is working, do more on a day than we can in our own strength in a million years. In this verse, then, I say we find the cry that must become the cry of every child of God individually and as a member of the body of Christ, the battle cry of the early church. Here it is, for we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus, the Lord, and ourselves, your servants, for Jesus' sake. In order to be a Christian, one must begin right. It is utterly vain for one to speak of faith in Christ, the Savior, who is not committed to the absolute Lordship of Christ, and who is positively opposing the dominion, the Lordship of sin, in his personal daily life. There are but two reasons why any man is unsaved who is listening to my voice right now. Either you have never heard the word of the gospel, or you are unwilling to accept the condition of repentance and discipleship, whereby the gospel of Christ may become in the language of the scripture for you personally the power of God unto salvation. Man, according to the word of God, cannot believe apart from repentance toward God, and the God whose commandment is life everlasting commands all men everywhere to repent. A man cannot share his life, that is, the life of Christ, his life everlasting, apart from repentance toward God. Now, my friends, the cry of this generation, is it yours, is, we will not have this man to reign over us. That is the attitude of rejecters of Christ. They are not dumbbells, they are not ignorant, they are willful in their rejection. Men want to be free, free of the rule and the dominion of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Men today want to be free of divine restraint, of holy obligation, and they are. But also they are free of saving grace, they are free of the prospect of eternal life, they are free of all prospect of heaven. Every man is free. He is free either of the dominion of Christ and the prospect of heaven, or he is free of the dominion of sin and the fear of hell. Also every man is a slave. A man is a slave of Christ or a slave of sin. To be free of the tyranny of sin, men must be brought to accept in a biblical way the Lordship of Christ, to take his yoke upon oneself, and there to find rest. There is no rest apart from him. A man cannot have two masters. And the question I am asking you to face right now is the question of who is your master? Who is your master? I say to you that the Lordship of Jesus Christ was the initial confession of the Church in New Testament days. They just went up and down everywhere, and they just said two things. Jesus is Lord. God made him Lord. Bow to him, sinner. Bow to him, sinner. Know you have sinned hands and butts about it. That is it. That is the only thing that will hold water at the judgment, the ability by the Holy Spirit to gladly prostrate oneself at the foot of the cross and look up to him who is not now on that cross, but he is seated at the right hand of God and by faith. So lift up your hands and say, Comrade, and confess him as Lord, because you are glad that God has made him that. The initial confession of the early Church was the confession of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. A man had to mean business in those days when Nero was burning Christians and feeding them to the lions. A man had to mean business to say, Jesus is my Lord. And, my friends, a man has to mean business today when the whole spirit of this evil age is permeated by the very spirit of Antichrist and the very breath of hell itself. A man has to mean business today to bow to Jesus Christ in his heart and stand up on his hind legs and confess him to an ungodly, rebellious, poisonous world and say, Jesus is my Lord. Whatever happens to me, Jesus is my Lord. If he sends me to hell, Jesus is my Lord. If he takes me to glory, Jesus is my Lord. He bought me. I belong to him. He has a right to do with me as he will. Jesus is my Lord. In olden days a man had to decide whether or not Caesar or Jesus was Lord, and today it is still true that the choice has to be made. You can't have the spirit of this age and the glory of Christ at the same time. In olden days it was said of people that they feared the Lord and served their own gods, and that's the way it is today. But a man can have only one Lord at a time, Jesus Christ, or S-I-N, sin. And then the early Church was aware of the fact that the only authentic confession of faith was that Jesus is Lord. It won't do to claim him as Savior, as a fire escape from hell, and deny his rule and reign and dominion in your daily life. There is no salvation there. The only kind of confession that men make before this world that will do to ride the river with and will stand in good stead at the judgment is with the heart to believe and the mouth to confess and the life to express the Lordship of Jesus Christ. In the word of God in 1 Corinthians 2, the Holy Spirit tells us the two things that can't possibly take place. In verse 3 of that 12th chapter of 1 Corinthians, I read these words, Wherefore I give you to understand that in old no man, speaking by the spirit of God, calleth that Jesus accursed. No, sir, these communists that are making fun of God and damning him and sneering at him, they are not doing it in the power of the Holy Spirit. The second thing in that verse that cannot take place is this, And that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but in the Holy Ghost. A man cannot scripturally confess the Lordship of Christ apart from the Holy Ghost. You can take him as a fire escape and do what they call except Jesus now and go on to hell without the Holy Spirit. But you need to begin to cry to God for a work of the Holy Ghost to begin in you to enable you to stand up and tell the truth and say, Jesus is my Lord, God made him my Lord, and I confess him, and I adore him, and I'm glad he's on the throne, and I found his yoke is easy, and I found that his burden is light. Oh, that is the confession that will get the job done. And then the word of God teaches a third thing, and this is my hallelujah shouting ground. The word of God teaches that Jesus as Lord is the ultimate confession of all mankind. One day, my friends, according to the word of God, Philippians chapter 2, all shall with their knees bow and with their tongues confess. Confess what? What's been true all the time. What's been true all the time? The Lordship of Christ. Who made him Lord? God Almighty. They'll confess then by the power of God, not by the suasion of the Holy Spirit. The most solemn thing I've ever faced as I go up and down the land preaching is simply this, that it's not a question of whether men and women are going to receive Christ as Lord. It's a question of when. All this has been settled. It is not true that you have the choice of whether you'll accept Jesus as your Lord or not. It's just a question of when. That choice has not been given to you as to whether. That choice is somehow another mystery I cannot understand. You have a lot to say about when. Confess him now, bow to him now in this heathen world, in this day when it looks like God's taken his hand off of nations and churches and homes and individuals, in this day when the spirit of antichrist is so thick you can cut it with a knife, in this day when hellish winds come from north, south, east, and west, in this day when it looks like Christianity is dying and the Church is on the way out, in this day when from professors' chair and pulpit men sneer at the old-time book, the Bible, oh, in this day confess him. Confess him not simply by saying it, but by living it, demonstrating that you are being possessed by a power greater than you that's changed you and is keeping on changing you until that day when you shall awaken in the very likeness of him. Oh, confess him now, salvation, but you don't have to, just wait a little while, and he'll put his foot on you and make you bow, for everything that rises and wriggles and breathes was created to echo the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, and one day men will be forced to bow. Why do we preach? Because now God speaks and moves and entreats and pleads and begs, and his Holy Spirit speaks in your ear with that still small voice and says, bow to him now, Jesus is Lord, bow to him now and receive the life of the Spirit, heaven in your soul, feet on a rock, hallelujah, bow to him now is my prayer. Will you please give earnest attention to these closing words?