In this sermon, the preacher reflects on his preaching ministry and the impact it has had on people. He acknowledges that he may never know the full extent of the number of people he has reached with the gospel. The preacher emphasizes the importance of sharing the gospel with the world and expresses his belief in the power of his own preaching. He also discusses the example of the apostle Paul and highlights four key aspects of Paul's ministry that made him effective in spreading the gospel.

I long to see people who know a little bit about the gospel of God's grace, have a baptism of tears, a baptism of holy passion. I long to see us set on fire. There is nothing on earth as terrible as naked truth that isn't soaked in tears and the Holy Ghost. I'd rather be a 190% free willer on fire for God than to have some conception of truth and to make that glorious truth of the sovereignty of God an excuse. For years I've been alarmed about my own heart and about all of us people who dare to make the claim that we're trying to preach the gospel by which God saved men. One of the great things that's said against us all over the land as I go about is that what we preach dries up our tears and our zeal. And in far too many places a wrong conception, not the right conception of the gospel, has done exactly that thing. I long to see this become more and more a place where this beautiful Linolean will feel the splatter of God-given, God-wrought tears so that God will be able to say, I saw your tears and I heard your prayer. I wonder if 13th Street Baptist Church could do something like what I'm going to tell you about now. I was in Rochester, New York some years ago. It's a city of 350,000, 400,000 people. It's the hotbed of Catholicism and modernism and liberalism and everything. And I'd been preaching a week. An old farmer called up to Pastor and said, if you've got some time I want to come down and talk to you a moment. And the old farmer came down and wrote out a check, written out for $2,600. And he said, I want that man's message. I want the people of Rochester to hear it. And he said, here's a check. And he said, I want you to buy radio time with this money and when it gives out I'll write you another check. The pastor said, brother, you're not a rich man. And he said, no, but the Lord's blessed me and I've got this money and I don't need it and I want Rochester to hear this message. The pastor got on the phone and called me and I came down. And I said, brother, this is too big a burden to place on me. I appreciate it. But don't all suppose we bought time on the radio station. I said, and we didn't have any evidence of response at all. How about it, brother? Do you still want to invest this money in the radio? Whether we get any response at all. I said, I can preach but only God can give me in faith. He said, I'm not interested overly in the response. I'm interested in the opportunity that I want to have a part in affording people of hearing the word. So there in that office, the pastor began to phone. He phoned the big 50,000 watt radio station that never had had a preacher on it in all its history. He made an appointment to see the manager. And by the grace of God, some way or another, they sold us three 15-minute programs per day. And then we got on two other stations. I preached nine times a day over the radio for four more weeks. And then the pastor got up that night. We would go on there the next day. And he asked his member, told what the farmer had done, and asked his membership if they thought he was in the flesh in what he was going to suggest to them. That the membership covenant to phone every phone number in Rochester in the next four days. And the women would sit at the home. We were not allowed in every vacant aisle. And they weren't doing something else. And all the men were different shifts. And they made a covenant to take the phone book. Time was wasting. And give an invitation to everybody that answered the phone representing around 400,000 souls. Not that many families, but that many souls. And they did it. They did it. They did it. Over the radio, nine 15-minute programs a day for four more weeks. I won't know till I get to the judgment. And that farmer who furnished the money, it was God's money, and he just was a steward. But he challenged us, and the pastor challenged the people. Honestly, folks, I want everybody in the world to hear the gospel I preach. There are multitudes of people who can preach it better than I can, but there are men who never live who preach a better gospel than I do. That's not boasting. That's just so. The gospel is revealed to me. And brother, I'll fight you over that. I won't fight over anything else, but I will that. If I was a member of 13th Street Baptist Church, I'd want everybody in this whole section to hear your message. I believe in it. I believe in it, and I hope you'll get to where you believe in it enough to baptize it in tears. They that sow in tears. That's still true. I do not necessarily mean tears that run down your cheeks, but I mean tears that are in your voice and in your heart. God knows. I think we'll ask you to respond about it tomorrow. I don't know of anything you've got I want, but I think we share a desire for men to hear about a God who's determined to have a family for people to love him. That's a great conception. It's the Bible conception, and I'm going to challenge you. Think about it. In two days' time, I expect the membership could blanket this city at least by telephone. If you got one response out of a thousand, you'd be doing good advertising. That's what the folks who advertise on television. If one person out of a thousand buys their products, they'll keep on. They say that's getting the job done. But ours is not to get men to God. Ours is to get God's message to men. Any way on God's earth we can do it. Amen? And I don't know whether that's just me eating all over it. You say, well, everybody's a church member. Well, nearly everybody in America is. But that's all right. If they're saved, they won't get mad at you. And if they're not, at least you might get a little gospel over the telephone. Amen? That's right. Well, you can think about it, and I'm going to ask you what you think about tomorrow. Tonight I'm going to speak to you, I anticipated, it rained all day, that I'd have a better opportunity tonight to speak to the 13th Street Baptist Congregation with perhaps fewer visitors than any night. And I wanted to talk with you from the 19th chapter of the book of the Acts of the Apostles. The book of the Acts of the Apostles. And I wanted out of my heart to bring, if God will help me, and help me not to be in the flesh but in the Holy Ghost, to challenge my own heart afresh tonight as I try to be used of God to challenge every child of God here tonight about what to me is the greatest ambition I have, and I hope it will be the greatest ambition this church has, and the greatest ambition that each individual Christian here has. For 35 years I've been trying to preach, 28 of those 35 have been spit hitchhiking from one place to another. And I've wanted to be known in hell more than anything on God's earth. Long since I took steps, I won't know at the judgment whether God was in them or not, I think so, that fixed it so I'll never, as long as I live, be known much here on this earth. But I want to be known in hell. I'd rather be known in hell than to be known by the powers that be here on this earth. And I want to read to you tonight about a man who was known in hell. And this man has been divinely ordained to be the pattern that you are to shape your life by. This man's a man with the name of Paul, and he tells us in Timothy that God saved him as a pattern for all who should hereafter believe. And I want to be like Paul. That's the reason I've never been able to go on a pension and never have got like him. If I ever do, it's still out in the future. But Paul was known in hell. The devil knew about Paul. The demons that do his business here on this earth now, they knew about Paul. Let's read about him, a man who was known in hell. In the eighth verse of the nineteenth chapter of Acts, and he, that's Paul, went into the synagogue and spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God. And when divers were hardened and believed not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude, he departed from them and separated the disciples, disputing daily in the school of one tyrannous. People told me, all of my ministry, Brother Barney, if you hope to be a successful evangelist, you must never engage in anything as controversial. But Paul did. He was down there for three years, just arguing and spitting all the time about who Jesus was. Yes, he was. And then God says, well, I won't preach on anything controversial. Every inch of ground in the word of God is the subject of controversy now. You can't touch the Bible any way on God's earth now without getting in a fight in this religious world. And the apostle Paul used to be our example. He spent three months, I think I said three years, three months, disputing and persuading of the things concerning the kingdom of God. And they wouldn't listen to him. And he went and took the disciples and went down to a school. And daily he disputed. He argued with people. He taught them. He brought truth there in that school. And he did that for two years. Verse 10 says, This continued for the space of two years, so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. Now that's some ministry, wasn't it? In two years' time, the whole outfit heard the word of the Lord Jesus. And God, now watch it now. Now get this carefully. Paul did the disputing. Paul did the persuading. Paul did the teaching. Paul did the persuading for two years. And then God did something. God confirmed what Paul preached. God has to do the confirming. And that's what I long to see in my day. God confirming. Now don't get excited. I've been in this quite a while. I'm not fixing to go off on a tangent. I'm going to keep on God willing. I think I can almost promise you this as one preacher. I'm going to stick to my last. If there's any miracle working done around my ministry, God will do it. I'm going to keep preaching. That's all I can do. I can dispute and persuade concerning the things of the kingdom of God. That's what Paul did. And while Paul was taking the truth of God about Jesus Christ, God came on the scene and he wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul. Now I want you not to get scared of this, but I want to call your attention to some of this. Now we need it. God knows I need it. We are awfully afraid that we're going to give man a little blow. And that's a well-intentioned proposition to be afraid of. But I call your attention, my friends, to three times that the message of salvation has to do with the turning or converting of men and women. It is a turning and a converting that is performed by men. God called Paul to turn the Gentiles by his ministry. Isn't that right? And God raised up John the Baptist to prepare a people. Isn't that right? That would receive Christ. And in the book of Hebrews at chapter 11, God isn't quite as afraid where he'll make a theological mistake as some of us. He gives Abraham credit. He said, by faith, Abraham did things. Abraham did some things. Yes, sir. God did it, but he did it using the hands of Paul, do you see it? I don't know what we all camped at for a long time. Don't you get mad at me. But those of us who speak much of the sovereign purpose of God better watch out now. Here's something else that's true, that God's sovereign purposes ought to be wiped out through surrendered men and women whom he owns and whom he commissions and whom he empowers. That's right. It's not too far till we can get into the position of our old primitive Baptist people. God wants to convert to heathen even do it without our help. No, sir. This shocked me some years ago when I needed to be shocked that God wrought special miracles. He's one good to miracle working. But ladies and gentlemen, he did it how? By the hands of Paul. Yes, he did. Yes, he did it. There's a man that God could work miracles for him using him. God wrought special miracles with the hands of Paul. And yes, some miracles in a way, so much so that from the body of Paul were brought under the sick handkerchiefs or aprons and the diseases departed from them and the evil spirits went out of them and God did the miracle working, but he did it by the hands and the body of Paul. Now, a sovereign God has been pleased to entrust the gospel to earthen vessels. A sovereign God for this age has been pleased to entrust the working out of his eternal purpose to us who have this treasure in earthen vessels. And what God does now in this day of Greece, ladies and gentlemen, he does not do it apart from, but he does do it through his people. A lost sheep will never be saved apart from a saved sheep seeking him. God seeks lost sheep now through saved sheep. That's right. That's right. I've had the desire all week, don't get mad at me, I've had the desire to stick a pin in you folks and get you on fire. I'm not one bit interested in orthodoxy unless it's sitting on a fire. I want us to get on fire. I want us to have something afresh. This isn't new. I'm calling you remembered things you already know. What I say to you that we need as under God, I have to have it and I think maybe you do. In the name of God, will you face it that God almighty has entrusted the gospel of the glory of his grace to people like us. And we must let it stop with us. We must just be channels. We must be on the lookout for every opportunity for God to bring things to pass by our hands, by our hands. Now in verse 13, certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits. The name of the Lord Jesus. They were as orthodox as all get out. These fellows said they took it upon themselves. Now watch this. They took it upon themselves. God didn't entrust it to them, but he asked his people. They took it upon themselves to call out over them which had evil spirits. The name of the Lord Jesus. Now that's good. But they said, now you evil spirits, you get out. And they did it on the authority of, they took it upon themselves to do it, on the authority of the name of the Lord Jesus. We abjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches. And these fellows that did that were seven sons of one Sceva. And he is a Jew and chief of the priests. They are the ones that took it upon themselves. I'm not talking to you tonight about taking something on yourself. I'm talking to you and me tonight about facing up afresh to something we didn't take on ourselves, but which was entrusted to us, was entrusted to us. And under God the cry of our heart. If we're doing everything that we as individuals know, and as a church gathered together know, from the preacher on down, to faithfully proclaim the things concerning the kingdom of God, ladies and gentlemen, you can call us whatever you want, our churches had better face this now. You'd better get to where you know what it is, to wait on God in intercessory prayer. For God, as it pleases Him today, to confirm what we're preaching. We can't confirm it. Only God can confirm it. Only God can do things with it. And I don't want God to do anything He don't want to do. But under God, if the chief way God is glorified, is in the saving of helpless sinners, under God I'd love to see a revival where a thousand are saved. Well, one's saved now, wouldn't you? Now, wouldn't that make God mad? These seven sons of Sceva, they said now to these people, these spirits, they attempted to bring the name of Jesus, and there's authority there. And they said to these evil spirits, you get out! In the name of this Jesus whom Paul preaches, you get out! And verse 15 says, and the evil spirit answered, and this mocks me today, this mocks me, this haunts me today. The evil spirit answered and said to these seven sons of Sceva, Jesus, I know. It's a fact. Whether it be in the will of God, I'm not certain. But it's a fact that you and I are living in a generation that hardly knows we're around. It's a fact that we are dead sure not troubling Satan much. It's a fact. It's a fact. I'm not yet preaching on demonology tonight. But if you don't believe Ashland's infested with demons, ask your policeman. Ask your doctor. Ask your chief of police. Ask your sheriff. I'm telling you, ladies and gentlemen, we little dream of the awful bondage that Satan has this generation of hell-bound sinners in. And I'm a novice at it and don't know how to go about it. And everybody says, don't go up on the deep end, and I guess I'll keep round on the edges and let the world go to hell. But we as church people today seem to know nothing hardly about the binding of Satan and the loosing of his captives. But there's something in the Bible about it. And I'm as certain as I'm preaching to you tonight that unless we can find some churches that'll begin to take seriously the battle that we're in. We are not battling men. We are battling principalities and strongholds of Satan. And old man Caldwell said to me a hundred times, and you've heard him preaching, I expect he said it to you, ladies and gentlemen, the only spirit that can handle the spirit of this age is the Holy Spirit. And it's time we quit giving lip service to it. Our churches must be turned, not simply to places where the truth is proclaimed, but into places where the warfare is pursued against the principalities and powers that abound this evil age to where our gospel falls off on like water off a duck's back. They're blind as bats and bound as they can be. And they'll never be saved unless they're loosed from the bondage of Satan. I take my, I take back water from no man. I've tried to stay with what little truth I could learn. But the older I get, the more heartbroken I am that we seem to think that truth is the answer. No, sir. Truth and the power of the Holy Spirit is the answer. And only God can furnish the latter. Here we are in a demon-infested city, if you please, with men blinded by the God of this age, bound hand and foot by Satan through the power of sin. And it'll take more than truth, brother. It'll take the gospel preached in the Holy Ghost. The gospel preached in the power of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost sent down from heaven to confirm by whatever miracles he pleases. I don't know nothing about that. But that's got to be our prayer today. Methods we used five years ago are five years too old now, honey. We're in the war and we're getting licked because we've not yet learned that a Christian is truer to himself. He's truer to the gospel on his knees than any other place. For years you've heard it here that when Christians get down on their knees to pray, they all believe what you folks try to preach there. They get up on their feet and their little old weak heads, they'll come in to argue and doctrine. But when they get down on their knees, they recognize the salvation of the Lord that only God can save. We all do that. We all do that. Here's a man that I heard the highest accolade that I've ever heard spoken of a human being. The forces of hell knew Paul. Jesus I know and Paul I know. Henry, who are you? Ross, who are you? We're not going to handle this generation in the way that God expects us to handle it. Then we'll leave the results with him. We'll have to do that. Unless we take more seriously than we've ever taken in our lives the fact that the truth of God must be baptized in the spirit of God and that every member of our churches that's heard the true gospel is a criminal if they do not get on a stump having to deal with the spirit and begin to preach these things concerning the kingdom of God with a prayer in our hearts that God will confirm what we preach. Paul was known in hell. They knew about him in hell. You know, sir, he is a preacher that hell had no rest while Paul was alive. These demons said, Hey, fella, Paul, he wanted us to dance. Who are you? You know they're out giving us in trouble. Eh? If a man has a life does he put it under a bushel or no? Ladies and gentlemen If God in goodness brought you into the light of the gospel of the glory of God set it up on a hill and let it shine don't hide it under a bushel. I thought I was going to get shot in your lane. You don't tell them that church had the truth. They go out tell people that wasn't in Buntown had the truth with them. And I shocked them. I said it's not so in the first place. No man ever had all truth. We got some of it. None of us got enough of it. But what, we better be humble about what little we do? No, that's right, isn't it? And then I said that God never has promised that truth will get the job done. The apostle Paul just relied on one thing that he might preach in the power and the demonstration. God would have to furnish the demonstration as confirmation. And that's the need of this hour. I guess you could not find a better prepared, better preacher thirty-seven years old than your own pastor. He ain't good enough to get the job done without a church that learns how to not be satisfied until God confirms. I doubt if Brother Henry can preach any better than Brother Spurgeon. And the heart of his congregation never got to hear him preach. There's in the prayer room underneath the pulpit waiting on God every time he preaches. Three hundred souls on their knees before God every time Mr. Spurgeon preaches. All the time he preaches. Praying for a demonstration. For a confirming word from God. Who alone can pierce the spirits of men? Who alone can take the scales off of men's eyes? Who alone can energize the perverted wills of men? Who alone can illumine the darkened minds of men? Who alone can break the awful, awful hellish hearts of men? Who alone can make the revelation real to men and women? Paul was known in hell. I think the imps in hell got on the telephone every time Paul started somewhere else. One little imp phoned down Thessalonica. Boys, you better get ready. Paul's on his way. I wish that so were me. I wish I knew how to give that devil more trouble than he ever gave me. I'm there right now. Oh, Paul never did let the demon rest. He invaded that territory and hell knew no peace while he was alive. I've tried to think about him. Where did he sharpen his edge? I know how far short I've fallen. I'm not fussing anybody. I'm challenging you and I'm challenging me. God knows that battle is red hot. It's red hot. You don't think it is. Get off your comfortable seat of truth and invade the devil's territory sometime and begin to witness. You'll find out the war's on. Where did Paul edge his blade, make it so sharp? And I tried to study what could you say about him and I think I see just four things and the introduction's been longer than the message. First thing about old Paul is he actually, sure enough now, he actually, K-N-E-W, knew that Jesus Christ was God's Son and that he had invaded this old earth and that he is God's own remedy. Now here's a man that the Holy Spirit about saved a look at the crucified, risen Christ. And what Paul saw on the road to Damascus was not a picture of the glorified Son of God, it's a picture of the crucified Jesus. And he found out that the very person he'd been seeing was the bastard son of a fallen woman. He found out that that Jesus that he'd said he ought to, he got what was coming to him. He found out by personal sight and by personal hearing he heard his voice and he saw it. And Paul never could be shaken come hell or high water all he wanted he knew that Jesus was the Christ. Ladies and gentlemen, we just will camp here a little while. What mama thinks about it and I'll get the job done in God's name. Don't go to hell trusting anything less than a first-hand knowledge of who Jesus is. I'm telling you, if Jesus is God's Son, that settles everything. And a man's a fool to go to hell taking anybody's word for it. I say to you, you ought to become a seeker after God until God reveals His Son to you just like you did before. You say there's one thing I know, bud, I know who Jesus is. He's the eternal Son of God. I saw Him and I heard Him. I think you preach around here, don't you? That salvation is a seeing and a hearing of Christ. We hear Him! We're saved by His call. We're saved by our look at Him. Listen to me, Paul saw Him and he heard Him and under God advise you I'd quit calling myself a Christian. I'd seek Him if it took the rest of my life until I could stand up and say I've heard Him, too. I've seen Him, too. You can tear up your Bible, brother Ronnie, but you can't tear up one thing if you've heard the Lord. And if you've seen the Lord, that settles it, brother. That settles it. Oh, my soul, you'll never get bigger than what you can believe. You'll never get bigger than what you can act upon on the testimony of God. You and I don't have a Damascus road, but we've got the revelation of God in Christ. And I'm saying to you that nothing short of a subtle knowledge that you have yourself that Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh, that it was God in a man who died on a cross, that God did raise Him from the dead, that He's alive now, and I K-N-O-W know it. I know it. I can't know it for anybody else, but under God I know it for myself. Hard to shake a man that's seen the Lord. Hard to shake a man that's heard from the Lord. Brother, that's got to be tremendous. And that's what it means to be saved. I think that the second thing that keened the edge of Paul's blade, made him known in hell, was that revealed truth. This book, if you please. Revealed truth. Held it like a vice. Ladies and gentlemen, here's a man, and he's to be my patent, who actually believed this was God's Word. He's just showing up, please. Now, I'm not just preaching now. I'm down to something. It's a whole lot easier to talk about this than to do it under God. Do you have any greater need? I don't, than to actually believe. Not to argue about it, just to believe it. This is it. This is God's Word. Paul believed it. Brother, he quoted it all the time. He got out of the tidiest end by quoting it. He actually believed it. He'd say, I'm persuaded. He said, it's a settled thing with me. On the testimony of God, that's settled. I'm persuaded. I don't know about you, but I'm persuaded. I've listened to God's testimony. That settles it for me. I wouldn't stake my eternal welfare on something. You say it. I've got to have some belief that it's on God's testimony. I've put my faith in Jesus Christ. Somebody wrote a book, and I read a sentence of it. I forget the book, or the man's name. He said, someday, a simple child of God is going to pick up the book and read it and just believe it. Make the rest of us ashamed of ourselves. Just believe it. Just believe it. Reveal truth. Just held him in a vice. Kept him steady in the boat. Couldn't shake him. He said, I'm persuaded. He said, I know whom I believe. Knowing that for the terror of God. He knew something about it. Testimony in this book. Leave the book. And that's the reason he'll pray. When he's asking the people to pray at all, prayer and supplication. For all the saints, and then he'll say for me, that I may be granted utterance. Utterance. That I may speak with boldness the mystery of the gospel. Utterance. Somebody has said that the greatest contribution that John Knox made to Scotland when he saved Scotland for the gospel was one time when the multitude 5,000 strong were in that great church, I forget the name of it, cathedral to hear and preach. And they waited, finally Mr. Knox came out from the cubby hole and stood up before the congregation and said, we shall all rise, please. He said, we'll be dismissed. I have no utterance. And he dismissed them and sent them away. Rather than preach to them out of himself, he dismissed them. Utterance in the Bible means authority. And what gave Paul authority? When he went out, as maybe some of you will do tomorrow, to give a witness to somebody, he spoke with authority because he believed this was it. There's nothing in doubt about it. Unless we can speak with authority, this world is in bad enough shape that it don't need some more question marks. We need somebody to speak with authority. Paul said, pray for me. That utterance shall be given to me. Don't let this just be the public preacher. God knows, elect yourself a committee of one. Pray for one another that utterance may be given to all of God's people in these awful days. That they may speak with boldness the mystery of the gospel with authority. This is it. This is God's word. I never get tired of reading that account of Paul when he writes back to the church at Thessalonica. And he reminds them that when he was over there, something took place that I long to see again and again and again. In the 2nd chapter of the 1st book of Thessalonians, at the 13th verse, the Apostle Paul says, For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, it is the word of God. And Paul said, I preached it, and ye received it, not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God. Paul said again, Well, I brought you the word of God, and you received it, not as my word, but as God's word. You have to have utterance to do that. You have to have authority to do that. You have to know what you are talking about. You have to read this book. This is God's truth. A man who trusts his life and his faith to anybody except on the testimony of God is a fool. And Paul said, I came over and preached, and by his praying power, and he had utterance, and he spoke with authority, and people heard it not as the word of men, but they heard it as the word of God, which it is in truth. And the word of God does what? It effectually worketh also in you that believe. Utterance. Utterance. I think my time is already gone. Let me just mention two other things. I won't preach on them. I'll let you go. What hell, what came to the edge of Paul's blade? Why was he known in hell? Why did he cause so much trouble? Why did the demons say, We know you. Don't know those seven sons of Sceva. Don't know none but Oroff Barnard. He spent his life going up and down the land, having not been able to kick up enough dust to bother the devil much. But Paul, I know. Well, not only because he knew Jesus, he really knew him, and he believed the word, but also he was learned about the destiny of sinners. Knowing therefore the terror of God, we persuade men. Come on now. Come on. Knowing therefore the terror of God, we persuade men. Know us by faith. Know us. Being warned of God of things not yet seen, moved with fear and prepared in heart, scared and pure and scared. How long has it been since you persuaded, since you pled with some old sinner, be you reconciled? What came the edge of Paul's blade made him known in hell. Ladies and gentlemen, he believed in the power of the blood of Christ. He actually believed this power in the blood.