In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of not just listening to the word of God, but also taking action. He warns against being complacent and thinking that there is plenty of time to turn to God. The preacher speaks about the consequences of rejecting God's word and the possibility of being sealed in one's sin. He also highlights the cost of following Christ and the need for a genuine confession of faith. The sermon references the book of Revelation and emphasizes the need to worship God and not bow down to worldly influences.

May I make one request? I trust it's in the spirit of the Lord, the pastor, and all of the Sunday school boys, that you labor much in prayer, that no foreign spirit far into the spirit of these meetings should enter into the Sunday school. You know what I'm talking about. Might be better to have a prayer meeting in Sunday school. I don't know. Don't know. Many of Godly pastors over the country preaching one thing from the pulpit, and half the Sunday school teachers making fun of what he's teaching. I'm sure that wouldn't be so rare, but that's true lots of places. And oh, just be in the spirit of intercessions, that the Holy Spirit might be pleased to open hearts. Take the shields off men's blind eyes, that they might see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, all through the Lord's days. I wish to speak, if the Holy Spirit will help me tonight, on how to savingly come to Jesus Christ. Not how to come to Christ, because everybody's already done that, but they were not accepted of Him. Takes two to make a horse praise, you know. A lot of people say they've accepted Jesus, but the scripture says that they may not feel until they have the earnestness of the spirit. And the earnestness of the spirit is the down payment, and there is no such thing as salvation apart from assurance to salvation. The down payment of the Holy Ghost is the assurance. People say, well, I don't know whether I'm saved or not. Now, don't misunderstand me. Somebody says, I've been saved 20 years and I never had a doubt. You've never been saved five seconds, even in what salvation is. You ain't got nothing for the devil to attack. The white horse is a different color. How to savingly come to Christ. I wish to labor all day tomorrow, if I can. We've just said one thing this week, and that you cannot come to Him accepting the truth of Him. You do not come to Him by way of vision. You do not get to Him by way of the saving. You have to come to Him by way of the truth, and the truth has to be brought to you and made real by the Holy Ghost, not apart from the Word. But there's not a person here tonight that's a stronger believer in the Bible than the devil. In the saints, 99% of church people do this, that we know who's our holy one of Israel. They didn't get saved. Neither will you until it goes deeper than that. How to savingly come to Christ. I have no particular text, but I wish you to follow me carefully, if you may, tonight. I'm interested in this subject. In the 11th chapter of the book of Matthew, we have what Bible teachers tell us is the third stop for invitation to the New Testament, the first time the Lord gave an invitation to individuals. I believe Bible scholars mention the word, the expression, the Lord first mentioned. I'm pretty sure your students are familiar with it. The first time the truth appears in the Bible, either old or new. It sets the patterns of what that means throughout the scripture, and that's a tremendous thing to follow. Where the pattern is set, and you must never add to it, nor take away from it. In the invitation of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have to distinguish this. In the 11th chapter of Matthew, verses 28, 29 and 30, we have his invitation. Can't take just part of it, we have to take all of it. Before we read that blessed invitation, let me hope that you'll understand me. I know you're trying to, you're blessed people. All men are commanded to repent. All men are commanded to repent. It's the duty of every man to repent. All men are commanded to believe the gospel. Repent ye and believe the gospel. But not all men are invited to come to Christ. All are commanded to repent. That's the duty. All are commanded to believe the gospel. Only some are invited. I hope it doesn't shock you, but if you ever get into the presence of Jesus Christ, save Him then, you have to be invited. And there he says, come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden. Well, he's already limited the invitation, hasn't he? Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll rest you. Take my yoke upon you, that's still part of the invitation, and learn of me. See any Christians enrolling in the school of Jesus Christ, sitting at the feet of the Holy Ghost. For I am meek and low in heart, and ye shall find rest in your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. All men and women in England are commanded to honor and reverence and obey and be in subjection to Queen Elizabeth. Only some are invited to come and visit us. Somebody says, well, I'm not burdened. Well, nobody's talking to you. The Savior does not give holy things to dogs, nor does he cast pearls before swine. And he never gives an invitation to a heart to come to him, apart from that heart being prepared. For nobody ever yet has rejected the Savior's invitation. They reject his command, repent. They reject his command, believe. But he never invites anybody to come to him for rest, unless they're labor and are heavy laden. Oh, thank God there's bread for hungry people, there's water for thirsty people, there's rest for weary people. But if you have no burden and you stay that way, you'll just have to go on to hell. You do not long to be lifted from sin, you'll just have to go on to hell. Brother W. A. Crystal, honored pastor of the church in Dallas, he and I used to preach on the street together way back younger in the state of Oklahoma. He just fled out of the seminary. He said he got a doctor's degree there, so he could preach like a holoroid in the First Baptist Church of Dallas, and he does. And we used to call him owners on the street lots of times. One time we were preaching, a little girl came up after we preached. We said we had some gospels of John, and by one day, she said, I want one. I said, honey, what do you want the gospel of John for? She said, I want to be, find out how to be done with sin. Oh, there's rest for the person who's so tired of bearing the yoke of sin. Oh, that the invitation is to all who have a felt sense of their need of water, quench their thirst, he's the water of life. Bread to keep their hungry souls, he's the bread of life. He's the one who rests men. And the way he rests you is by putting his yoke upon you. Any man who works hard has long since found the most restful thing in the world, some other kind of work, some other kind. Is that right? That rests you. And so the Lord said, I'll rest you, I'll take the devil's yoke off of you, crush scoundrel, and I'll put my yoke on you. And he is so gracious, he says, I want to tell you something, in charging things extra for it, my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Salvation, my friends, is in a person. The one great issue of this hour, sense of this, you cannot partake of the merits of the blood of Christ apart from being vitally joined by faith to the person of Christ. You cannot stand afar off and believe in facts. No, you've got to close the ranks and get into vital union with him who shed his blood in order to partake of the benefits of his life laid down. That person is the Lord Jesus Christ, he that hath the Son hath life. If you could just get to him, and get to him in a way that he accepts you, and come to take up his abode in you, Christ in you, the hope of glory. If you could just do that. I didn't ask you if you would, because that don't come under the head of your option. You won't. I asked you if you could, if you could. You don't have to, because one day he'll put on your neck and make you, but now he doesn't do that. Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could get into the living presence of the Lord of glory, and go away singing, Hallelujah, it is done. I have believed on the Son, I'm saved by the blood of the crucified one. Wouldn't have to have personal workers. Sure, your God had done something for you. You had somebody better than a personal worker, and you had the Holy Ghost. He made Christ real to you. I wish to speak a little while tonight on what it will cost you to get to him, but before I do, I want to warn you. Something gets involved in coming to him. You can't come to him by walking in an aisle. He's not in an aisle. You can't come to him by shaking a preacher's hand. You can't come to him at the altar of prayer. If you ever get to him, you'll have to come to him in the truth of him, and the truth made real to you by the Holy Ghost, the truth of his bloody cross, and the truth of his glorious song. Don't get mad at me, brother Barney. Salvation is an experience. It is a conscious experience, but anybody on earth that is trusting in an experience is going to split hell wide open. Salvation is an experience, but you're going to go to hell not looking for vital union with Christ today. That would always tell somebody about what happened to you 20 years ago. Every time somebody says, Brother Barney won't tell you about my spirit, I know I'm talking to a lost churchman that sure as God made green apples. Salvation is an experience, but it isn't in an experience within Christ. And the two things that are involved. First, don't come to him hastily. My Lord was a square shooter. Three times in the gospel of Luke, chapter 9, people came up to him and one fellow said, I'll follow you. I'll follow you. But he said, I've got a few things to do. He hadn't counted the cause. He took out. And then again another fellow came and said, I want to follow you, but he said, I've got to go bury a grandpa. He said, let's go on the club, bury the dead, spiritually, bury the dead physically, and you come on and follow me. Somewhere down the line we isolated being a Christian from following Christ. That's what it means to become a Christian, to get in union with him and have a Bible union and walk with him. And he didn't come, but the Lord warned him. And then another fellow said, I'll follow you wherever you go. They said, I won't go tell mama goodbye. He wanted Christ in the attachments of the world. They went on to hell. In the 14th chapter of Luke, three different times, the Lord Jesus Christ faithfully warned of people who cannot be his disciples. Let you hate your father and your mother and your brother and your sister and so forth. Let you forsake A-double-L-O. That's strange language, isn't it? But don't come hastily, Houston Fuller folks. But they went through the motions and they can tell you about their experience. You might have had a bigger brother, but you didn't have a big experience. But unless that empty void is filled with the presence of the living Christ, just as the nation and your cancers of hell are eight times stronger than the world before you had your experience, count the cause. Don't just let in this thing. And yet turn right around and say that you're running a race between the certainty of death and the power of sin to bind. Don't get in too big a hurry, but you better not bear it too long, or you may die. And worse than that, you may be sealed in your sin, for God reprobates people now. Sometimes in a meeting I bring you eight messages, solid, night after night, on the awful teaching of God's word about how God in time rejects men, seals them for sale, Christ's care on this earth. They begin living in hell years before they die. No hopeless salvation. You're running a race? You come too hastily, don't count the cost. You will join the ranks of spectators that will show up in the churches in the morning, sit on a fence, and look the situation over, and go back to the hog pen at 12 30. But if you bear it too long, it is arranged that clocks tick in. How much longer before God is going to say, keep him joined to his idol, let him long? How much longer before that cat gets already down in the undertaker's fire, just to fix you, he's going to be? Nobody ever knows. So there it is. Somewhere in the hundred-mile radius of this city, Houston, yes, and the name seems to me to be Speed Rail, but I don't know whether, I forget how far it was from here, a little fishing town. A young student in Southwestern Seminary was a pastor there, he drove backwards and forwards each weekend. He asked me to fly down, and I went down and preached for him a couple of weeks. I remember the second day after I got there, he came to me and said, Brother Barnard, I'm going to tell you something that's on my heart and on the heart of my people. I'm going to ask you advice about it. He said there's a man in this town, his name was Dutch, I forget his last name. He said he owns the biggest saloon in our town, but he's a winsome personality. And he said he's got the young people of this little town, it wasn't a very big little place, he's got the young people of this town absolutely in the heart of his heart. Methodist, Baptist, in the God name. He's got the whole outfit. They just think he's it, and he just picnics on, he does this and he does that, and he's got them. And he said, Lord lay him on our hearts, and he said we pray for him. And he said, Brother Barnard, we set a prayer meeting going, two people in the church building, one hour at a time, 24 hours a day, praying for God to heal the Dutch. And said we've arranged for two of our men, every hour, on the hour, to walk into his saloon and witness to it. Every day, until something happens. He said, what do you think about that, Brother Barnard? I said, don't ask me, boy. I bet you something's going to pop. Then I said, you mean tell me that that's your conviction? He said, yes. Right or wrong, we believe we've been led astray. I said, that's pretty drastic. He said, I know it. Well, I said, God hasn't elected me to run his business yet, and if that's your impression, you tear out. I don't know. I'm getting your gut pretty hard around there. And oh, most of the Baptists and Methodists and Christians, everybody got mad at the Baptist and took up for Dutch. They said, that's the craziest thing we ever heard, embarrassing that man like that. How come you didn't swing people's head in the right light for a couple of people of the Greenwood Baptist Church, come in your place of business every hour, on the hour, by talking to you about Christ. And you know, he was fabulous, fantastic, and got out with that gang. I thanked him on the side, hit the pit down too bad the church was failing far and far. And pretty soon we had group meetings, and they let us set up the loudspeaker, and I just keep picking up the stones on the street, and they throwing rotten eggs and rocks at me. I had to run, wasn't no place to run. It got hard around. I don't know whether they did right or not. But old Dutch, he's got the touch. Oh, he's a good church member, have you run since? Oh, yes sir. And, but he didn't need it. Oh, he's pitiful. And to get on the hour, he had the biggest crowds and echelons and everybody wanted to come and see what those Greenwood Baptists were doing. I got scared. And the last day old Dutch still resisted. That blessed young pastor came to me and said, Brother Barney, would you go talk to Dutch? I said, you want me to? He said, yes. You won't listen to anybody. I said, let's go. So we went. Walked in the door and Dutch saw us. Walked up to us and stuck his finger in that little preacher's face. And he cursed on us. And he said, you so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so, I've seen your face the last time I want to see. And I demand in the name of Almighty God that you quit pestering me and put me on the spot. And that young preacher's tears began to flow down his eyes, cheeks, and he's sobbing. He said, Dutch, I've asked Brother Barney, he's our preacher, won't you listen to him? So-and-so, so-and-so, no sir, I don't want to hear nobody. I'm all right. And then Dutch said, I want you to get out of here. Keep your people out of here. And I don't want none of you never to pray for me nor say one word for me as long as you or I shall live. And that young preacher said, you mean that Dutch? He said, I sure do. And of course we walked out. I preached that night. Somebody brought me to Houston, put me on the plane. And I flew through the night and got home at seven to eight o'clock, Winston-Salem. And by nine o'clock there was a telegram between me. Seven o'clock Monday morning, that was Sunday afternoon, I preached Sunday night and flew home. Seven o'clock Monday morning the pastor's telephone rang. Only a line of nurses at the hospital, both tired. Dutch had been stricken. We got him in the hospital. He hadn't got but a few minutes to live. He's asking for you. Will you come? And the young preacher, he dabbled as fast as he could. But before he got to the hospital, Dutch was dead. Oh, who knows when the reigns in life and death will be ended. If it could, if it could before God reprobates, become a seeker after Christ. If it could before the death rattle comes to your soul, become a seeker after the Lord. The doorway to the kingdom of God is the Lord, ship of Jesus Christ. This is the place to start. It's the only place to start. Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Not the fellow that calls him Lord, but the fellow whose Lordship is working out in his daily life. Luke 6.46. Why call ye me, Lord, and do not the things which I say unto you? Romans 10, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. In scriptural salvation, and I don't want any other time, man must not only inwardly believe that God raised him from the dead and put him on the throne, but at disregard of all consequences, he must stand up on his hind legs and accept the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It cannot be done in the corner. John 3.36. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. He that obeyeth not the Son, that's it, he that obeyeth not the Son, shall seek not the life, but the wrath of God abideth on him right now. There is no salvation now, and surrender to Christ where he is on God's throne later. To go together, you cannot take your pen knife and split Jesus Christ up, and it was a sad day some forty or sixty years ago when we got our eyes out and whittled Christ's Lordship away. And whittled his prophetic voice away, and whittled his present intercessory work away. We've been preaching one-half of one-third of Jesus ever since, and so we've got people with just enough religion to make them miserable, but not enough to put the joy of God in their hearts and set them aflame to witness the Christ. Surely the present day that I live in is relentless in its hostility to Christ. They don't mind you being a church member. They don't mind you being religious. That's jokes you hear now by the average Baptist speaker. Boy, if you want to hear some real show-off cursing now, listen to the average woman who does it. My lady, curse words. If any man should desire to deceive, I want him to know how he'll involve himself before this world. Your confession, and remember testimony may be sold or not, but confession is always real. Testimony is to man, confession is to God. It doesn't say the man will kill Jesus as Lord. It says if he confesses, that's God, that's the God, and this is real, that's true! Your confession of Christ may cost you everything you've got. This text makes the Holy Spirit hinge upon high commission that will produce a mal-confession. Stand up on your hind legs and say, in a world that's in bitter hostility to end, this one whose name you used to cut with, this one whom you call Savior but denies ruling your life, I gladly own him, adore him, worship him, bow to him as the Lord of my life. Amen. That's it. Thus the scriptures demand submission of heart and mouth to Jesus as Lord. And it'll not be made easier, and there's never been any other way. Nashville, Kentucky, 38 cooperating Baptist churches brought me there in a tent. On Sunday mornings, when the meeting had progressed a week, 17 of them stood up in their pulpits on Sunday morning and said, Ralph Barnett is a liar. You can't have Jesus as Savior without having him as Lord. But I'm not a liar. You can't cut him up. This is the issue. This is the issue. Let us hang our heads in shame, my preacher brethren. When we meet people, we meet everywhere, we tell you about how they got saved, and we hear you preach on who Jesus is, and they say, preach us. We never so much heard that Jesus was Lord. What kind of a person did they accept? Not the only begotten Son of the living God. What would it cost you, believing in your heart that that one they put in the grave yonder outside the city of Jerusalem was raised from the dead and declared to be the Son of God? Not only that, it's also that the right hand of the Magistrate on high and everything that rises and wiggles turned over to him, even your salvation or damnation in his hand. When did the White Cross get to stand up in this religious but lost generation and confess him and tell the truth? In the past, in Paul's day when he wrote this text, he understood White Cross, for Caesar was curious Lord, and Nero fiddled while Bromberg and then led the Christians to the lion to cover up his crimes. Oh, it used to be understood that you couldn't have the spirit of this age and Christ as Lord at the same time. That coincidence of the returning victorious general of the Roman army came back dragging his trophies in that parade, and the Emperor, Caesar, entertained him in the Colosseum. He was a guest of honor, and directly the gates were opened and some cowering, emaciated people were whipped out, and then the lion. And the general said, What is this? Oh, he said, I want you to be entertained. Those are some of those despised Christians, and we're going to feed them to the lion. And the general said, Is this the day when you're feeding Christians to the lion? Yes. Well, he said, Then feed me, for I own and sue Christos, Jesus Christ, as my Lord, too. In the past, it wasn't a mock battle. People didn't shed a little tear until it was taken. People faced the issue, who's going to be my supreme God. In the future, and I'm not clear in my theology on some things in the book of Revelation, if I'm not sound now, you just forgive me. But I think this is yet the future, and yet what I'm going to read from the 14th chapter of the last book of the Bible looks like the spirit of the front page of the Houston Chronicle today. In the 13th chapter, we've got men having a mark placed in their foreheads, and they're marking everybody now. And they're saying, You bow down, or you ain't got anything to do. Every great major denomination in the world has put up a sign, No gospel allowed here, and if the preacher does it, we'll mark him starved to death. God help us, that sounds terrible. But whatever this is, in an atmosphere like that, where if you don't bow down to the beast and call prophet, the more it's not in your head, you'll get it. I want you to hear the gospel. In the 6th verse of the 14th chapter of Revelation, in that kind of an atmosphere, you'll find out what it'll cost you, if you're around in that spirit here, to get to pray. I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel, or just one gospel. They're not three, they're not four, just one. This is a gospel of peace for this awful spirit, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, unto every nation and kindred and people. What is this gospel? Singing with a loud voice, Fear God! I'm a king, I'm scared of the false prophet, I'm scared of the beast. If they don't do that, they'll kill me. But the gospel message, the message from heaven, the way of salvation, in that atmosphere, Fear God! And give glory to him, don't you bow down to that beast. Amen. Heavenly don't you bow down to the spirit of that antichrist whose breath is so hot I can feel it in my nostrils right now. Fear God, and give glory to him. That'll be God's good news. Good news? Yes. Well, it costs hell to get paid. It won't cost him but one thing, that if he fears God and gives glory to God, I'll tell you what it'll cost him. Verse 9, the third angel followed him, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast in his image and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God. Well, it costs you. If you hear the gospel and obey it, the old beast will kill you. If you reject the gospel and bow down to the beast, God Almighty will pour out the wine of his wrath upon you. My soul, it'll cost something. What does it cost in the present? I was out in Mesa, Texas, many years ago in a meeting. One day to pass an hour out in the country, a young farmer had dinner with us. He took us out and showed us around, and we got along. I said to him, young man, tonight I demand you walk that aisle and stand up there on your legs and say whether he ever blesses or saves or damns, I own him, I recognize him, I submit to Jesus Christ as the totalitarian Lord of my life. He said, Princess, and if I do that, it'll kill me. I said, exactly. All it costs you to get saved is to die. But it costs that. There's no difference to get. Die to self, and then you'll have to make self again tomorrow. Die to sin, and then you'll have to resist it again tomorrow. My minister, I've never seen but one poor homosexual, I believe, got converted. He's a wealthy man. He's titled America with the revelation of what he's doing in New York City. He informs us that one out of every ten people in that city is either a male or female homosexual. That's as low as humanity can get. He's back to starting now. He says that he's not seen a single one of them saved since he's been there. He takes the position they cannot be saved. He says they've been reprobated. Then he makes the most startling statement I've heard in many days. He says the homosexuals in New York City are people who want claiming to be Christian. And one devil went out for the creeps, but Christ didn't come in, and now he does. I don't know whether that's right or not. But I've seen one homosexual that I, not looking into man's eyes, I believe he's got Christ. I'll never forget how he suffered for three solid weeks. Walked down the shoulder, strayed in the big tent, come back, seeking Christ. Get up, go away, nothing happened. Everybody knew about him. Tremendous interest. One time he got up from his knees, after about three weeks, he sought me out after the service, and I saw hell in his face. He said, what can I do? I said, let's try this. I believe this is it. Tomorrow I want you to beg off from your job. Can you do it? Yeah. I want you to just walk the streets of this city, go in the stores, and say I'm the town homosexual. I acknowledge Jesus Christ as the absolute Lord of my life. I said, just keep doing it. It might be, God may not, he don't have to, but it might be that eternal Lord might be pleased to deliver you and set you free. For six consecutive days, he got off from his job. These buttonhole people walked in the stores. He said, I'm not a Christian. They all know me. I'm the town homo. I want to tell you Jesus Christ is the seventh day peace king. I've been to that town and 13 evangelists have campaigned in the same church. He sits on the front seat, and the glory of God is in his face. I believe he got to Christ. Ladies and gentlemen, quit trying to bargain with God. Just catch yourself on him. He's worthy. You ought to serve him if he sends you there. It might be if you ever had that kind of faith, quit trying to swap with him. He might speak peace to your soul. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, one night it's pouring down rain, just pouring down. I went to the church building thinking the house was still. God was moving in the meeting. Three precious ladies were waiting. Watch, they want to say something to me when I came in. They said, Brother Barnard, he's back again tonight, and this is the night. We just know this is the night. They'd been bringing the little Jewish woman night after night, morning after morning, beginning to pray. She was the wife of a millionaire Jew there in that city. How on earth they ever got her under the sound of the gospel, she kept coming and coming until this thing began to crystallize. These women knew what was going on. They said, today the crisis came. This is the night. Today her father and mother told her, using their terms, if she embraced the religion of Jesus Christ, they'd disown her. Her husband had two beautiful children, a beautiful home. Her husband told her if she embraced Jesus Christ, she could not return to the home. And in Jewish circles, that can take place. And in spite of that, she was there that rainy night. That prince, the best funeral talks they'd ever had in a barren, empty casket in their synagogue. They buried that woman. God looked into her face and listened to her talk. She said she got acquainted with the lover of her soul, the Lord Jesus Christ. God pitied men and women whose mothers would shout, they came to Christ, and who wronged their rebellion. God pitied boys and girls whose brokenhearted parents would weep for joy if they'd surrender to Christ. Hell can't be too hot for people like that. Ladies and gentlemen, if you can, drop your shotgun and surrender to my Lord tonight. Our Father blessed, has seen good. In thy sight is the heart of this people. Rout me now, arresting places and covers of rebellion. May there be no time throwing down with the weapons of our rebellion. Glad surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ. If it pleases thee, let that miracle in people's hearts tonight. In Christ's blessed name, let us.