In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the power and importance of preaching the word of God. He highlights that preaching is not just a public activity, but a personal responsibility for every believer to proclaim the message of salvation. The preacher emphasizes that true salvation can only come through the Holy Ghost and that accepting Jesus as Lord requires a genuine encounter with the Holy Spirit. He also emphasizes the need for fervent prayer and reverence for God, stating that familiarity with Christ should not diminish our sense of awe and reverence. The sermon concludes with the proclamation that Jesus is Lord, regardless of whether people acknowledge or love Him.

Our speaker for this week of services, as was pointed out, is Dr. Ralph Barnard from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We praise the Lord for the message that was brought to us this morning by our brother. We look forward to a full week of services as he ministers to us. We look forward to the message he has for us this afternoon. May God bless you. This is a wonderful occasion, and I do appreciate the honor of being in this service. I feel strangely led to be pastor here. I've been all down through there. That is wonderful. It was on Labor Day weekend, a little more than a year ago, that we received a phone call in Winston-Salem. We were home from Arkansas and waiting to go out the next Wednesday, and somebody phoned us. My wife answered the phone, and somebody said, Mr. So-and-so, I'm a pilgrim passing through, and I want to meet Brother Barnard. She thought it was a crank. We get lots of phone calls from cranks. After a year and a month, I think she was right. I got acquainted with the Rieslingers and through them with the people of the Grace Church. And last December 30th, I met your dear Dr. Berry, and he and I, my wife, did our dead-level best through the afternoon to straighten out Brother Rieslinger. It didn't do us good. I'm glad to see you again. Also had the joy of meeting your young under-shepherd last April. He had black hair then. He dyed his hair red. I didn't know him when I met him yesterday. I always have to watch myself. When I get up here in Yankee land, just as dignified and nice, sometimes I pull a boner. Will you open the Word of God to the 2nd chapter of the book of Acts? I didn't know I was to speak at this service until last evening, and I'm going to speak from a verse of scripture in the 2nd chapter of Acts. And the verse is verse 37. And I think that I could not speak on a subject more suggestive and challenging and appropriate for such a gathering as this and such an occasion as to go in somewhat briefly this afternoon. You have to get back to your places, and we have to have service here tonight. And I'm going to be more brief than usual, but I want to speak on the revival that took place at Pentecost. The revival that took place at Pentecost. Certainly there's no use to dedicate buildings in which people meet in church relationship unless we dedicate ourselves to a moving of the Spirit of God to make Christ real in our day. A revival would be men bowing at the throne of the Lord Jesus Christ. Just simple, just fall off a log backward when men and women begin to bow sweetly to the Lord Jesus Christ for whom God Almighty has made every claim, everything that rises and wriggles is going to redound to the praise and echo the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. And revival time would be when men now under grace are sweetly bowing to the Lord Jesus Christ. But men are not going to bow to an unrevealed and an unknown Christ. And the Jesus of the modern day pulpit and the Jesus of the Bible are not the same. The Jesus that is preached today can be received and accepted, and you keep your pride and you keep your good opinion of yourself. For the average testimony meeting now is the most blasphemous thing this side of hell, for we brag on everybody except God, who says, My glory I will give to none other. We brag on ourselves. The Jesus of the Bible is not known to this generation, and we have no recipe by which we can command his presence. Despite all of the sermons we've heard about if we do this and if we do that and if we do the other, why God would do so and so, they're just not so. There's no way on God's earth we can hymn God up in the corner and command him to reveal himself. We're shut up to his good pleasure. And I'm glad we are. I'm glad that the hope of revival is not in our frail hands. It's in the hands of a God who has a way of breaking through when all else has failed. I want to talk to you about the revival that broke out on the day of Pentecost. It broke out after this wise. In verse 37, Several things were accomplished on that day, but the main thing that took place on the day of Pentecost is that in the presence and power and fullness of the Holy Ghost, the Sovereign Redeemer was pleased to reveal himself. We'll have no revival unless the Lord Jesus Christ in our day shall be pleased to reveal himself to men and women all about us. And the Holy Spirit came, but the main thing the Holy Spirit did was not many of the things that will not be repeated, but he pressed the claims of God for Christ and God's Son manifested himself. And that crowd of people were face to face in the Spirit with the Lord Jesus Christ. It may be a little damper on us, but I hear a great deal these days about if you'd live such and such a life, that sounds good, that men would see the holiness of your life and they'd be bravely convicted of their need of Christ. That's awful good preaching. There just ain't a word of truth this side of hell in it. The holiest man that ever lived was so filthy when compared with the spotless Son of the Living God. And what I'm saying is not to discourage you from seeking to live as holy a life as you can, but I'm saying this to take the glory away from you and place it where we need to have it placed now. Men are not going to start screaming for mercy because they look at you or look at me. They'll never do it until they're confronted with the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I believe that that aspect of Pentecost can be repeated. And I believe it'd be wonderful if this building burned down before night unless your prayer to God in Eden is that he himself shall grace this little building with his presence. And he who alone can strike men dumb and cause men to say, depart from me, for I'm a sinful man, will walk these aisles and sit in these pews and clutch at the reins of the hearts of men and cause men again, having heard the truth about Christ in the hands of the Holy Ghost, to cry out, what must we do? The Spirit of God came on the day of Pentecost. He came in great power. But his coming was but a part of the revelation of Jesus Christ. Christ revealed himself at Pentecost. And, of course, there was what we call revival. If he should be pleased to reveal himself to this generation, there'll be revival. Men do not know the living God. They know something of the Christ of history. They know something of the pitiable Jesus of the modern-day pulpit, who plaintively stands at your heart's door, hoping great be you. Well, let a little bit of him come in. But of the sovereign, enthroned, son of the living God, reigning at God's right hand now, head over the church, which is his body, to whom the nations and the heathen have been given for an inheritance and a possession, almighty God's prime minister, who must reign until everything that writhes and wriggles has been brought unto his subjection, of that Christ this generation does not know. Does not know. People know something of the influence of great men, Khrushchev and others. But they know very little of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is right now head over all things, working out the will of the Holy God in the course of history. That Jesus, men are not conscious. And if he should be pleased to reveal himself, there'll be revival in our time. I want to give you four themes found in the second chapter of Acts, as to how he was pleased to reveal himself on the day of Pentecost. They're interesting to me, and they're interesting to you if you're interested in revival in our time. Mr. Redpath, who went back from Moody Church to Scotland the other day, I never saw him. I admired him afar off. He left this country with these dynamic words, we're shut up to a miracle. We've used every alibi. We've exploited every doctrine. We've used up all of our brain capacity. We're shut up all over this country to a miracle working God that assures you foot and a half high. We can't go on much longer, going through the motions. We are in a desperate need for a sovereign God to make his power and his presence known. I believe if we get desperate enough, that'll be just exactly the time. When we've lost all confidence in ourselves, and we're dying pretty hard, but we're sure dying, I believe the Lord will do something in my day. He was pleased on the day of Pentecost to reveal himself first according to his sovereign will. Is that too hard for you? You know, it may be that we better quit making our God be so little that we could tie him up by a recipe. It may be that he's bigger than our recipes or our thoughts. On the day of Pentecost, nothing was favorable. The whole religious world, save a few little group of disciples, was dead set against the manifestation of the person of Christ. And so it is today. The whole religious world is dead set that one thing's not going to happen. He who always disturbs everything he touches, we're just not, if we can help it, going to allow the disturbing son of the living God to come and tear up our little religious clutches and our pious little doctrines and our so-called consecrated lives. But he came anyhow. He came according to his will. And I'm glad that that's our hope today. My hope is not in anything I can see. If the religious world wanted revival, they would not hate and fight and snare at the true nature of Almighty God. He's utterly sovereign. He's God of gods. He doesn't need our advice. He doesn't accept it. He doeth as he pleases. And we're willing for him to be the kind of God we want him to be. But we seem to hate in church life today the God whose character's revealed in the Word of God. If there is one truth this generation of people inside the churches and out will not have. They will not have the God whose character and purposes are revealed in the Word we call the Bible. Away with that kind of God. But in spite of the fact that the religious world, consecrated, very devoted, very orthodox, tremendously zealous and ignorant of the true God in spite of its opposition, our hope is that as he did on the day of Pentecost, the sovereign Christ may be pleased to reveal himself. And when he does, brother, you'll change your tune and the whole last crowd of us will join the Apostle Peter. Depart from me. I'm a sinful man. If I ever get to be elected dictator of the United States, first thing I'm going to do, I'm going to put a $25 bounty on all the church members that are so familiar with Jesus. I'm going to have them shot. They're ruined in this country. They've about closed up all the sources of power. I said it this morning. I say it again. Familiarity with Christ is a revelation that you don't know in. I'm speaking truth to you. That's the God's truth. It took your grandpa about 30 minutes to properly address the deity when he came in prayer. Now everybody loved Jesus. My soul, where's the reverence? Where's the sense of majesty? Where's the sense of everything this old earth has just to echo the glory of the Lord? It pleased him, and he revealed himself. In second place, and I touch it because you're here from different congregations, it pleased him to reveal himself in a local congregation. These desperate days that are on us, all of the splits within the splits within the splits and the fragmentations and the unrest are just evidences of the awful seriousness, the lack of spiritual dynamic power that we're in. We say we'll go this way, maybe we get in touch with the power of God. Or we'll go that way, or we'll go that way. And we always wind up going in a circle, and we're desperate. And in that sort of an atmosphere, it would seem to me we need to be called back these days. And it needs to be emphasized, and we need to get some stakes down here. We hear a lot now about the great spiritual movement outside of organized churches. And we hear that revival has always broken out outside of the organized churches. And that's good preaching, it's just not so. When Charles Wesley and Whitefield toured America, not together, but at different times, wherever local churches were to use the language of the street on the ball and getting the job done, they had great crowds and great results. And when the churches about played out, they couldn't get a corporate guard either. I'm saying this, that it pleased the sovereign Redeemer to come and walk the aisles and make his presence felt in that local congregation that met in the city of Jerusalem. And I couldn't be a pastor of any flock on God's earth, couldn't anyhow. But I think I'd go crazy if I couldn't, as the under-shepherd of a bunch of people, strive for and hope that what he did on the day of Pentecost to a local congregation, he'd do again! And he'd come and grace our meetings by his presence, for only in his presence are men convicted of sin, as they're confronted with the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you believe that? That's so. That's so. He might do it again. He might do it again. You just can't tell. He might do it, the local church. I think that the great need of the hour, then, is for God's people. In some churches they outnumber the unsaved members. In other places they are outnumbered. But for God's people, wherever they meet together in a local congregation to sit out their stakes and be found, like this church on the day of Pentecost, in a threefold position that must characterize a local congregation, if the sovereign Christ is pleased to make his presence known. I call your attention to the fact that the Lord didn't say where two or three are gathered together, there I'll be in the midst of you. He said where two or three are gathered together in my name, minding me, under my authority, doing what I tell them to do, is that right? Under the absolute authority of the living Christ. He said I'll come around there. And there were three things about the church on the day of Pentecost. They were agreed on the basic doctrines. Now if you'll read the second chapter carefully, in the first chapter they weren't agreed on everything, but they were on the basic doctrines. And there are just two basic doctrines. That's the cross and the throne. That's the cross and the throne. I'll have fellowship with you about any other teaching of the word of God. I won't argue with you, I don't know enough to argue in the scripture. And the man who gets mad because he differs somebody else from some teaching of the word of God, shows he's got a mighty small brain. Because our brains are still affected so much by the thought that we know only in part, and none of us know enough to get mad at the other. The fact that we cannot agree. And we do not agree on anything but the two things we better agree on. That's the significance of the cross on which the Lord of Glory died. And the throne upon which he's now sitting. And I will not take the time, but you study the second chapter of Acts and you'll see to it that that church on the day of Pentecost, those two things were settled with him. They were together there, brother. They believed in an enthroned Lord who got there by way of a bloody offering of himself on a cross. And they were agreed there. They were agreed there. They were agreed on the matter of prayer. A bunch of the women and some of the disciples, they all stayed there and prayed, blessed God. Prayed. I'll pass that back. I'm just mentioning some things. They were agreed on the matter of waiting. Waiting in the New Testament. They waited for the promise. Not folding your hands. Waiting means doing two things. Waiting means obedience. Waiting means dependence. Obedience. Doing what you find your hands to do. Doing what you can find out to do. Obedience. We cannot have revival in our local congregations now because there is the spirit of rebellion instead of the spirit of obedience. Obedience to him. He never has. He's not fixing to grace disobedience with his presence. This church needs to set itself the two doctrines of the word of God you're settled on. You can't settle on anything else under God gets straight on me. On the matter of prayer. How much longer are we going to substitute 10,000 good things for the matter of church prayer? And then this matter of waiting. Obedience. And dependence. My soul. This church at Pentecost waited. They couldn't get the job done themselves. They recognized how utterly dependent they were on the manifestation of God's Son in their midst. And they waited. They waited. They waited. He was pleased to reveal himself in the atmosphere and outpouring in fullness of the Holy Ghost. You can stack up a fight now amongst carnal so-called Christians who think they're very spiritual. You can find out how spiritual a man is. You book some doctrine, he believes. See how mad he gets at you. But on the day of Pentecost some things happened I suppose will not be repeated. There are things taking place in the religious world in America today that make our eyes bug out and I'm not capable of passing a judgment on them. But here's one thing I'm greatly interested in. Whatever else takes place in the fullness of the Holy Ghost, Christ may reveal himself. I don't care for all the ecstasy if Christ still hides himself from our service. But if he'll come. Amen. Amen. If he'll come, we'll just go through the motions. I've been trying to do the work of an evangelist for 36 years. We're as helpless as we can be. All of your faith hours, all of your prayers, all of your tears, all of your zeal, all of your congregations, all of it's fine. None of it amounts to a hill of beans. Unless the Holy Ghost takes the claims of my Lord and presses into the spirits of men. That's the cost of it. I don't know why we couldn't have that again. I've seen it. Last Sunday morning, I saw it. I couldn't go on if I didn't once in a while. The older I get, the more silly it becomes to use the best weapons of the flesh to do what only God can do. I think we're reaping a great harvest now. We are harvesting the fruit we've picked green for the last 60 years. And present company accepted our churches are getting to be dangerous places to go to. You'll have to get shot. Some unconverted fleshly church member is going to have his way if it tears up the whole city. We're learning that if we give holy things to dogs and cast pearls before swine, they'll turn and rend us and we're getting rended. But I saw the Holy Ghost, made in Christ's presence felt last Sunday morning. About a year ago, I got a letter from a heartbroken young pastor. He said, my church is fundamental and orthodox and dead. Most of them are. Nobody let me preach for them unless they're desperate. They said, will you come see if you can call mourners? And I went. My nice people. Fundamental. Straight on second coming. Got the rapture all fixed up right. Got everything in place. Nice as they can be. Sincere. Devoted. Separate. Clean living. Dead. The preaching was disturbing. Much resistance. Last Sunday morning, my helper came and he filled that room. And men were face to face, not with a dead creed, but a living Christ. Hallelujah. I saw a church born. I, the strongest man, will have to bow when Christ is made real. We can get our decisions and our professions and all of that, but this what I'm talking about now is real. And we shut up to it. I don't see why we couldn't see that again. And then the last word, it pleased my Lord to bring revival according to his sovereign will. There wasn't anything favorable. He just did it. Pleased him to manifest his presence in a local congregation. That's our only hope. He did it in the atmosphere of the coming fullness of the Holy Ghost. He did it through preaching. He manifested himself to that crowd of people through the preaching of the word. My, what a sermon. The therefores. When they heard this, I haven't time to go into it. You read about this. Read about this. God approved them by miracles. God approved them by raising them from the dead. God approved them by giving the Holy Ghost. This one. This one. That God wrought miracles, saying to the world, this is my son. This one whom God raised from the dead and declared to be the son of God in the spirit of holiness. This one who sealed his being exalted to the right hand of God sitting on the throne by sending the Holy Ghost. This one's the one that you took and crucified. This one is the one that God Almighty has raised from the dead and declared to be Lord of all. When they heard this, they were stabbed in their hearts and cried out, what must we do? It still pleases God by the preaching, the foolishness of preaching. Not simply public preaching, but preaching. One by one everywhere proclaiming this one to save them that believe. All of this talk about times of change and we need new methods and all of that just a bunch of foolishness. Men haven't changed. God was smart enough way back yonder to anticipate our day. We just still have two weapons and that's preaching the power of God and answer the prayer. And we better get to using them. Let us not despise the ministry of preaching through the humble lips of a man by the name of Peter. The truth was presented in the hands of the Holy Ghost until men and women were made conscious of Jesus Christ. It's the only way anybody ever gets saved. Isn't that right? Sure it is. I wish we believed that. Author dependence, that isn't fatalism, that isn't being lazy. It takes ten times the energy we spend on other things to agonize in prayer. And that's our need. I'm still looking and expecting and hoping to be in another service where Pentecost is repeated. And at least one aspect, and to me that's the biggest thing, where Christ just confronts men. They can't hide behind no more harm do this and is that, brother, in the face of Jesus Christ. There's but one way to go and that's down, brother, down. Bow down. Peter preached two things. He confronted this crowd with their part in the crucifixion of the Lord. Glory. He confronted this crowd with God's answer. God raised him and exalted him. He's utterly Lord. He's Lord whether you love him or not. He's Lord by God Almighty's decree. Hallelujah. He's Lord of all. I was in a town in North Carolina some three years ago. And I remember I started on Sunday morning. By Friday afternoon, hell was popping. I'll tell you what's the fact you want to get in a real fight. Press and Company accepted. You preach the Christ Peter preached on the day of Pentecost to this generation of church people. This Christ, the only one that we've got in the record ever lived. God bless your heart. He is the enthroned one. He's the enthroned one. And every knee's going to bow to him. And I'm presenting his claims. And they'll make the best man that ever lived repent. I know of no one act of faith or one act of repentance that's saving. I believe when you face who Jesus Christ is. Who was that little fellow born over there in a cow stable? He's God manifest in the flesh. How do you know? God raised him from the dead. How do you know? He sat him down on the throne forever. That's what God did. That's the testimony of this book. And in the face of him was his claims. The best man that ever lived. Had to live a life of daily repentance. John Wesley said your tears need to be wept over. Your prayers need to be prayed over. Your repentance needs to be repented of. That's written in the New Testament. No where has anybody promised everlasting life except in connection with a faith that continues. He that believeth and continueth and obeyeth and so forth. Abideth. Oh my soul! Preach your little Jesus who's a fire escape from hell. And nobody will ever have anything except a good opinion of himself. Get up every morning and look at yourself in the mirror of God's demands and claims for his only begotten son. He's declared him to be Lord. Lord of your mind. Lord of everything. And tell me you can go to bed that night without a time of confession to him. Whose claims you've made such a poor response. I remember this congregation, the pastor was interpreting the messages, trying to help his people hear me. And he came into my room, was staying at his home on Friday afternoon and we were trying to have a little prayer. We was having a pretty hard sledding, you know. And pretty soon the phone began to ring and it just kept on ringing. And I said the Lord will excuse us, we're not getting anywhere in how you answer the phone. And he did. And we're on to the first token of victory. Oh, will you listen to this crazy preacher from the south. Listen to me. God helps the little Jesus of modern Christianity. Anybody can accept him. But the one this book talks about. Nobody can receive him except in the Holy Ghost. No man can call him Lord. Not this one. Except in the Holy Ghost. Down to the end of that telephone came victory. A man and his wife, two eldest children, gone home. Him not. Did the only thing a poor old sinner can do. Sell down the corn, bow to him. Sinner, you'll kiss the sun. Blessed to be angry, you'll go to hell. You'll bow to Jesus or you'll burn in hell. It's really just that simple. Well, so the pastor came back and said, well, there's a break. The opposition is crumbling. Has somebody claimed the Lord's saint? Well, just take a lust at death. And I began to laugh and cry in the pastor's prayer. And I was laughing. And ladies and gentlemen, I'm a novice in the things of the spirit. But there was somebody else came into that room. And he filled that room. He filled that room. And that dear pastor, that was about four o'clock. He walked the floor and prayed to God and shouted, a Baptist. He didn't speak in tongues. Some people say they do. I didn't. I never did. Some people, I don't understand that. I'm not fighting it. I'm just neutral. I don't care about a thousand things. But I tell you, somebody came and filled that room. I know, brother. I've seen it happen many times. Same thing happened one day at Pentecost. Somebody came and filled the room. We went down to the little meeting house that night. And glory to God, somebody had filled that room. You ever walk inside of a little meeting house and walk right smack dab into Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Ghost. And they sang and wept and cried and repented and got saved. During the song service. And the pastor could sit there and sob. I've never been in anything like this. And it was the same way Saturday night. Somebody filled that room. And all day Sunday. It is Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Ghost. God bless your heart. That's the only answer. We shut up to it. But thank God the sovereign Christ is liable to do it again. Amen. Amen. Amen. And so, I long for it to happen in this spirit. Will you stand to your feet.