In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of recognizing the severity of sin and the need for salvation through Jesus Christ. He challenges the audience to believe in the punishment of sin and the necessity of God's wrath. The preacher highlights the urgency for revival and for the church to prioritize preaching the gospel in its true form, focusing on the sinfulness of humanity and the exaltation of Christ. He calls for a genuine response to the gospel, rather than just going through the motions, and emphasizes the need for a deep conviction of sin in order to truly accept Jesus.

This is the last three messages preached by Brother Ralph Barnard and this one was taken from the 19th chapter of Revelation and it was preached on Sunday night of January the 19th, 1969. I've been told by your beloved Thunder Shepherd, he and Brother Holder are seeking to work together and Brother Holder's congregation, I'm going to tell it right now, they'll be here during the weeknight. He's hopeful that you'll follow over the next week over there, is that right? And I told your pastor, I do not like to try to talk anybody into making the profession a phase until I've preached to them for three weeks and so I want you to be patient and wouldn't it be wonderful if you would number, if the Lord would give you a beautiful building I'd love to see a lot of people in there, wouldn't you? Not just so we could fill the pews, but in the day in which we live, there's no climate for the gospel. You go into a home, you have a hard time ever getting to the subject of the Lord, don't you? You meet a man down on the street and talk about everything, but it's awfully hard to say a word about God Almighty and his claims and his provisions for men. There's no climate, nobody is anxious to find out whether there's any remedy for them. They think they're all right. Now that's a condition we face and I think we ought to face it and we ought to just get this great big old plow I used to do in West Texas on the farm and go to plowing deeper than we ever have plowed before. If we don't do some plowing we haven't been doing, we're going to get thinner and thinner and thinner. I lost my reputation many, many years ago and I just got a bad name. They said Mary, somebody said. And so I don't have to worry about whether we have any results or not. I'm just concerned as whether we do what God would have us do at a particular time. And I think we pay more attention to that. God will take care of his end of it, don't you? And I'd like to hear somebody in these two weeks together. Year one, I'd like to hear two. I'd like to hear somebody very much concerned, crying out, is there any hope for me? Now that'd be what's called a Bible, isn't it? You walk down the street, whether you got town on you somewhere, I know, and that way you work and somebody will walk up to you and say, you got a minute? Yeah. I wonder if you could tell me, do you think that God would show mercy to me? Boy, wouldn't that be something. Man, I tell you what's the nearest spell that ever gets to heaven is when somebody does that and you get the privilege of telling the old, old story. He never heard it before. He'd been preaching a thousand times, but he'd never heard that story. There was no good news to him, but it is now. And don't let tell it to him but once. And then you hear the cry of a newborn baby. Oh, that's the little hell and all that. Now, would you few people who are seeking to be a testimony here, would you get excited about the possibility of that? Would you recommit yourself? Now, let's just try to see one thing here. Let's see if God would confront somebody with himself in Christ Jesus. That's the only way anybody ever gets saved. People are not saved when they make a distinction. What you decide, you can undecide. People are saved when they're confronted by the living Lord and the ghost. Is that right? God help us. We've had so much of man's decisions and so little of God's presence. I won't say the latter. You're going to pray for us, pray one before another. At the invitation, I'm going to ask you to do a definite thing. I don't know whether you can or not. I don't know whether you will or not. I'm just going to ask you as a brother in Christ. I want to read from the night, and I don't know what to speak on in the morning. I just don't have the least way of knowing what kind of congregation I'll have, whether it'll be God's people, whether you'll be able to bring people in. And the Lord will give me something for the first service in the morning, I trust. I want to speak to you tonight on a very solemn thought. The day is coming when God's people are going to be called upon to shout a great hallelujah as they watch God send their loved ones to eternal hell. Every Christian facing me tonight is going to be at this meeting. When you join the chorus of people saying hallelujah, take inside with God, rejoicing that God is going to win this war we're in. That every enemy of almighty God is going to be brought in subjection to Jesus Christ. I rejoice in bad times when it looks like the devil has got our whole nation, and our homes, and our churches, and our schools, and our society, and our business worlds, looks like the devil has got the whole business locked up. And one wonders how much longer the long suffering of God shall be at our disposal. And when you kind of look around and see hell popping loose, everywhere, churches going out of business, preachers quitting the ministry by the multiplied hundreds, everything just tearing all to pieces. I like to take the Bible once again and soak my soul in its promises that we're one day nearer the time when righteousness is going to cover this earth as the waters cover the sea. And when God's going to put down all rebellion, and when all mankind are going to bow their knees and with their lips confess the lordship of Jesus Christ. When I was a kid, my boy, I lived on Horatio Alger books. I don't know whether you ever read them or not. Any of you ever read Horatio Alger's books? Lift your hand. You won't be happy until you get to heaven if you didn't do that. When I was six, seven, eight years old, I just devoured those books. Every one of them just alike. I expect I read a hundred of them. It is all about the poor little orphan boy that he'd come into New York City and he'd have a dime in his pocket and holes in his shoes and he'd finally get him a job for about a dollar a week. He'd have the awfulest trouble you ever saw in your life. And if it wasn't he'd get him a job as a boot blacker, a clerk or something. He was a good little boy. But the old mean boys, they'd give him a lot of trouble. And after I read a few of them, I learned the secret. Every time I'd get a new book, I'd read the last chapter first. Anybody's got incense. Want to enjoy a book, read the last chapter first. And I got where I got biggest fun reading those books you ever saw. Because I wouldn't read about all the trouble that boy had and everybody's mean to him and he'd get accused of dishonesty and look like he's just going to be ruined and he'd get knee deep in trouble and the devil would pack it down. I never would read that first. I'd read the last chapter. Bless the Lord. In the last chapter the boy came clear and he had vindicated and he married the president of the bank's daughter, you know, and he got elected vice president and built him a big house up on a hill and just lived happily ever after. And after I'd read that chapter, then I'd go back and start at the beginning. And when my hero would get in trouble, it didn't bother me much. I'd say, I know a child's going to come out there. Bless the Lord. They ain't going to get him. It looked like he was a goner, but he ain't. Praise the Lord. Amen. That's got good sense to it. I love to read how it's going to come out. How it's going to come out. And my Lord Jesus Christ is going to be on top. He's going to be the victor. Amen. The devil's not going to get in the last leg. The world is going to be brought under this objection where there is happiness and peace. No man can live in God's world and have any peace and happiness unless he's latched on to the will of God as a central thing in his life. I like to read that promise in the scripture. Nevertheless, we look, do you, according to his promise. He gave it for new heavens and a new earth wherein shall dwell righteousness. It's coming. It's coming. And I'll tell you the biggest thing between the eternities is to have some assurance that when the wind of time comes, you'll be in the crowd rejoicing that God won instead of being in the crowd. And that Jesus Christ puts his foot on people's neck and makes them surrender to his rule. And I won't talk about that crowd tonight a little while. We're going to be, thank God, on safety side. On hallelujah side. On rejoicing side. On taking sides with God's side when God brings his awful judgment on this world. Let's read here in the 19th chapter of the Revelation, verse 1. And after these things, some things have taken place. There's got the last rebellion broken forth and been crushed. The last battle's been fought. Now there's a counting time. The crop's in now. And the judgment is set. And after these things, I heard a great voice of much people. And they're in heaven. Our fathers thought heaven was a place to begin. They really did. They thought it would be wonderful to go from this life to a place called heaven. And sure enough, after the thing, history's run its course. The prophet here is allowed to be present in vision. It's a wind-up, he says, a whole lot of people in heaven. And he said they got a great voice. And they're opening their mouths and saying, Hallelujah! Hallelujah! They're in heaven and they're glad they're there. And there's a whole lot of them. Bless the Lord. And they're saying Hallelujah. And they're happy because salvation is of the Lord. And they're happy because glory belongs to God and He'll give His glory to no man. And they're happy because all honor is of God and power. Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and honor and power unto the Lord our God. And they're just shouting these wonderful scriptures to God over one thing. There's this thing that enables them to shout. And the scribe, all praise and honor and adoration and worship and glory. Salvation to almighty God. Something's taking place. These people have witnessed it. And they sit there still to it. They said God's right. God's doing right. Whatever God does is right. What He's doing here is judging. And they're shouting Hallelujah because now they're able to say truth and righteousness are His judgments. That's a little hard to say in this life. But yonder God's people are going to be able to shout and say Hallelujah as the judgment of God falls on the biggest monster that's ever been let loose between the eternities. That's perverted religion. The judgment of God comes. And they shout Hallelujah for true and righteousness is judgment for they're just singing as He has judged the great whore. This is religion which did corrupt the earth with her fornication and hath avenged the blood of His servants at her hand. And they shout again Hallelujah as they see the smoke of the one thing that's damning more people than even as I am saying. That's religion. Everybody in this community is very religious. If you don't think so, you go look in the mirror yourself and see what a good opinion of yourself you have. And now you're knee deep in hell, one foot in the grave and the other dangling over hell but you've made a little profession of faith and everything's all right. You're going to sleep on, chances are, till the judgment catches up with you. Or you knock on this doorbell and say I'm all right, I go to church, I believe this, I believe that. And they've got a religion that doesn't make them holy and doesn't set them hot after the pursuit of perfection and that leaves them perfectly satisfied to call themselves Christians when they can be satisfied with anything less than the likeness of Christ. And they say I'm all right. And you say we're having meetings down in our little church building and they don't say it out loud but what they say in their hearts so what. Let them hear the gospel, don't need it. Don't need it. Oh, thank God one day this monster that bears the name of Christianity which is really anti-Christ is going to come under the smoke of God Almighty's judgment and the smoke of the torment of this crowd is going to rise up forever and God's people are going to shout hallelujah. Hallelujah. The war is over. The victory is won. God's still on the throne. The Lord's got omnipotent reign. Think you could do that right now? Could we shout hallelujah as we seek God, bring judgment? The day will come when we will. You know that's something to be phased. You a Christian? Let me challenge you afresh as I would my own heart. Let's take down your sign or get out of the rut that passes for being Christian today. Ladies and gentlemen, I see more Christianity among drunkards than I do amongst this generation of church people. Something's happened to us, folks. I never met a drunkard yet. Wouldn't give you the shirt off his back if he was drunk. Gamblers stick together. If one of them gets in trouble, they help each other out. But what passes for Christians today is a bunch of folks that watch each other hoping they'll fall so we can stick a knife in them. There's not enough love manifest amongst professing Christians now to fly a kite. God knows there's not enough real sure enough concern for our brother men and women, boys and girls still outside of Christ. Mr. Wet Eyes quit attending our services a long time ago. This is a lovely little church building, but I don't like this rug. It's so clingy. Looks to me like you people haven't wet it with your tears. Wouldn't it be wonderful if Mr. Wet Eyes had come back to church? And Mr. Amen, amen to the book. I used to go home meetings, and after the first service, disturbed people would come to me, treat me like I was a gentleman. Brother Barnum helped me pray for my loved ones. My boy is going to hell. Won't listen to me. My husband's going to hell. Can't reach him. My daughter, my neighbor. Can't even talk to them till I work for her. Full of alibis. One would be reminded of Hezekiah. God was pleased to say to Hezekiah two things. Hezekiah, I've seen your tears. I've seen your tears. You haven't seen many amongst profession, preachers, and church people lately, folks. As in, and I've heard you pray. Is there any hope for us? Let me challenge you. How do you think you'd act? How do you reckon I'd act? If I took seriously the fact that if we don't witness down here, it's going to be a little embarrassing. And we'll have to witness it to judgment. And be on God's side. And as we see God send eternally to the place of torment, men and women, boys and girls, we'll have to say hallelujah, God. You're doing right. I believe we'd face that. And we'd get into war. I've heard several expressions since I've been here. Don't misunderstand me. Just bring my little wisdom against yours. Who's the smartest? None of us smart enough to know much about it. I've heard, oh, I wish we could have revival. I don't believe we can have it. I don't believe God's going to touch us side, top, and the bottom until we do a lot of rearranging. I don't think revival will help us much. I think we're going to have a revolution. This work of soul work, top, side, and bottom. I believe it's too desperate for us to have a little movement and call it the spirit of God. I think it's time for every preacher and every professing Christian for we are told not to take the name of the Lord our God in vain. That means plainly what we're not. I think it's time for us to do some soul searching. I don't think this is any time for complacency. I think we ought to find out what it means to afflict ourselves and plow our own heart and learn how to mourn. One more time. I see you've got mourners' beaches here. There ain't worth a dying unless there's mourning in the heart and in the spirit. Isn't that right? Hear me! How much longer are we going to claim to be tramps of the grace of God in Jesus Christ when we are not totally sold out to the proposition that men desperately need a Savior from the just wrath of Almighty God. There ain't but one issue but that. You know there ain't we have to call. You know there ain't the pastor of most of our churches. I hope this isn't true here. You know what he has to do when the service is over? He's got to ask somebody to benedict while he runs to the back door while all the unsaved church members get out as soon as they can. I used to preach to churches where a church member was brokenhearted if he showed up at a service like this and wasn't able to sit beside some old sinner he brought there and prayed for her. Now we come and sit and sleep through the service put a little money in the pot and get out as fast as we can and join the crowd and all go to hell together and call it Christianity. I'm going to ask you two questions tonight. Do you believe God ought to punish sin? He's going to. He's coming when you're going to have to shout You're doing right God. God's going to deal with rebellion against his sovereign rule. That's what sin is. Any man who denies the lordship of Christ in any aspect of your personality or your life that's his iron sin. Man belongs to him in the world. What we call sin just sprouts from it. And that's everybody being God himself and denying God the central place in his life. Everything sprouts from that. Do you believe that's the rebellion that started in the garden of Eden and is going on right now over just one issue whose boss under whose authority am I to act? Mine or God's? Do you believe God ought to put that rebellion down? He's going to. All rebellion is going to be put down. God's going to wear it. Of course it don't mean everybody's going to be saved. It just means God's going to save some by grace. If he can't save you by grace he'll bring you in subjection by power. For every knee he's going to bow. Nobody's going to escape. Do you believe God ought to punish sin? Do you believe God will punish sin? Do you? Hear me. Let's be honest a little while. All this fool talk about who wants to see revival, do you? Well what happens to your conviction left to one reason? Men are in desperate need of a mediator, Jesus Christ is because God must and God will punish sin. Why isn't there any client in this community, anywhere else in America for the gospel of Jesus Christ? I'll tell you why. Because this generation while we've been praying in church and trying to wish Jesus off on unproud hearts this generation has lost all consciousness of God Almighty doesn't anymore believe that sin will be punished than a monkey and nobody ever yet has got desperate about who Jesus Christ is whether he did anything on a glory cross that would help anybody or not except as they face the fact that whatever else happened whether anybody's ever saved or not one thing's dead certain God Almighty's gonna see to it that not one sin ever goes unpunished. God hates sin. Sin is worse than death. Sin is worse than hell. God's gonna punish sin. If a man believed that he'd be afraid to die and meet a God that hates sin and is sworn to punish it. I don't know whether I'm getting over to you or not but I'd love to see in this community in the one to follow are you agreeing with me? Is this what you want? I'd love to see a blow struck by God's people now get your water chewing tobacco in your mouth and begin to spit amber juice in the spirit of the sage and with tears of compassion and of boldness of the Holy Ghost quick, hard to get this generation to take Jesus quick, hard to waste some unwarranted Jesus on sinful men and hold men and women up under the scorching searchlight of the first message of gospel preaching and that is that God Almighty requires of men what they cannot perform in themselves and unless they have what God requires of you done for you by Jesus Christ there's no way on earth men can escape the coming wrath of God no way on earth you believe God ought to punish sin? do you? sure enough do you believe God will punish sin? I've been spending my life fighting what we call evangelism I'm called the greatest enemy of evangelism in America I hate what we call stolen I hate all the methods and tricks and the whittling down of the claims of God in Christ that have made America at once the most church nation on top side of God's earth and the most godless at the same time I've given my life and I'm not fixing to stop I've got it in for all of this business of ignoring the fact that both in the Old Testament and the New you cannot ignore the laws of God's harvest a farmer that goes out here and plants his seed on unplowed ground is a fool and we've been wishing the gospel on a generation whose hearts have not been plowed by the whole requirements of God ever since I've been the heir to a duck and we've got everybody to take Jesus and go on to hell that's right I'm saying it's time to call a halt and remember that you've sold the blessed, sweetest story that ever was told the glorious good news of a crucified, exalted Lord you can sow it on unplowed hearts and they'll never make a dent brother pastor we just well roll up our sleeves spit on our hands let somebody else brag about how many men they've won to Christ they can't find them no how and just start doing some plowing now would you love to see it? in the old testament and the new we're forbidden in the old testament to sow among thorns in the new testament we're forbidden to cast our pearls before swine and to give holy things to those what does that mean? well that means you attend the average church now you almost have to have a deputy sheriff it's a sort of unseen especially in a business meeting and the Lord warns you ignore the laws of the harvest and the folks will turn reindeer to pieces they fire the preacher if he preaches anything now huh? that's right what have we got? we spawned the monster how'd we do it? we did it by ignoring the plain teaching of the word of God that until people are stabbed in their hearts with the awfulness of their sin and the wonder of God's exultation of Christ the supreme Lord until they're stabbed there now you try to get them to take Jesus huh? they'll go through the motions but there'll be no change would you love to see somebody in this community actually anxious to hear the old, old story of the gospel you can't do it unless this church gives its whole ministry to the Bible way that we've ignored in most places so very long you believe God ought to punish sin? why did Jesus die? if God won't punish sin you believe God ought to punish sin? you believe God must punish sin? you believe God wouldn't be God any longer if you let a single sin go unpunished? if you don't then you'll agree with the preacher that the God of the Bible's a monster if he hung his son on a cross like he did when he's going to overlook sin anyhow he's a monster oh my friend we want what we call revival? well let's just come back to what your mum and daddy believed and what we take for granted and have almost lost God help us dear ones listen to brother Barnard everything that's wrong in America is linked at the door of our churches if morality had almost gone in America us professing Christians look in the mirror we caused it that's right no use to blame the politicians they didn't do it, we did that's right that's right God intends for his people to control things God bless your heart I'm under conviction I'd love to get you under let me come back to my question you believe God ought to punish sin? he's going to is the God you worship does he have to punish sin? can he be God and overlook sin? if he does he'll go out of business the Bible says there are two sovereigns two absolute monarchs Paul says that Si and Sin he personalizes and it said Sin reigned and the other sovereign grace now reigneth through the righteousness of Jesus Christ one of them is going to learn which side you are on this is the issue of the hour don't tell me about your creeds or about your doctrine it may not be much better than mine I'm not particularly interested in your profession or mine I'm not particularly interested in your testimony or mine he's saying that he is hostile he is reclaiming to be followers of Jesus Christ and we've lost the one conviction that makes the whole thing make sense and that is that men are in such desperate condition in the sight of God that the crucifixion of the Son of God was an absolute necessity for everybody sent to hell that men desperately need a savior Mr. Wilson when he was President of the United States took a little stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue and he looked to his right and saw smoke belching out of a little humble dwelling and he ran over and rang the doorbell and knocked as loudly as he could and the nice little dainty housewife came oh Mr. President how nice of you to call come in and let's have a cup of tea and Mr. Wilson said I didn't come to drink tea I came to tell you your house is on fire the average state member now is full of convictions he's got this pocket full of them and that one he's full of opinions and we're trying to wish our opinions off on people and try to wish our convictions ain't worth a dime what men need not to bleed like you do what men need not to have your opinions what men need not to bleed like you do this is right and that's wrong what men need is a savior from the penalty of S-I-N-C that's what men need that's what men need I see a church member coming out and talking to me I won't run I know he's going to try to tell me about one of his convictions or one of his opinions and I'm not interested oh opinions and no opinions convictions and no convictions this is the nub of it either God must punish S-I-N or he mustn't if God is set to punish S-I-N if all hell can't keep him from punishing S-I-N it's high time we quit inviting people to tea it's high time with tears in our hearts we begin telling people the house is on fire well everybody hears us or not ain't going to come under the head of our business but God knows if I I'd light a fire under myself and I'd light a fire under every professing Christian I could reach and I'd light a fire under every congregation that calls itself a church oh that the fire would burn us out of taking it's ease as men are going to hell rejecting God's claims on their lives oh if we could get excited I think somebody else might get excited if we were a little bit excited maybe we could get somebody interested I tell you right now I'm tired of living in a refrigerator and calling it church and it's in Christianity I'd like to have a little fire wouldn't you I believe that's reading the scriptures says you get your plow and plow your own heart honey people say oh Lord give me a burden say say fresh you want to get a burden go to doing what the Lord said and you'll have one huh huh that's right that's right I heard things that dear little church people I know you wouldn't do Lord if you see anything in my life that's displeasing to you wish you'd take it out you're a big old liar you know good and well something that you don't like and he ain't going to take it out he says you do it you put it there you reach in there and take it out that's right whoo I wish we could get on fire yeah the story of the dear old woman in the Civil War she lived in Kentucky some of the Kentuckians were for the Yankees and some for the John Rebs she happened to be a rebel synthesizer and her husband's four sons was off to war and she was left alone and the Yankees had come through in a little skirmish and they'd taken every pig and chicken and cow and everything that was loose at one end and left her there and the only thing she had that was loose at both ends was a poker she stoked up the fire with and one morning she looked over and spectacled out the window and saw a few Rebs and Yankees out there shooting at each other in the cornfield and she put her glasses back up and got her bonnet on put her long flowing dress up with her left hand and a poker in her right and she skedaddled out the house out the little yard opened the wicked gate and was running down the road toward the war and she passed one of her neighbors said hey how are you doing said you blame fool I'm going to the war don't you see them fighting out there and the fellow said well you can't put on a war with a poker she said by the grace of God I can show them which side I'm on that's what I'm calling us to do which side we're on which side we're on which side we're on I think we need to camp here till we decide get on one side dear we'll God punish sin if you will men desperately need the Lord Jesus Christ if you will hallelujah for Jesus if you will if you must go back my professing Christian brother or sister and bang your bangs and the bell and tell your spirit to revive and there's some excitement and Holy Ghost enthusiasm and pathos and warning in our ministries with touch men and women oh God deliver us from the niceness of the hour that's a breather of atheism and infidelity and threatening to do away with what we call our churches I was in Kentucky years ago and holding one of these what you call simultaneous campaigns all the Baptist churches of that association the whole meetings together so happened that the church where I was preaching had a daily radio broadcast and so happened it was the largest church in that association and they also had I believe a ten o'clock day service none of the other churches had a radio broadcast nor did they have day service and pleased God to send the fire on the radio ministry and pretty soon people were having fist fights down on the street about the message I'd love to see some of that wouldn't you? I'm getting tired of everybody agreeing with me on everything that means don't believe nothing you know I wish we could have some fights around here I don't want to fight nobody bigger than I am but some of you folks little fellas that's their song leader I'll fight you I'd love for somebody to believe something around here we could at least have a good lively scrap wouldn't you? aren't you so tired of everything being so peaceful like it's in the cemetery? I am I tell you what's that and they're cussing me if they don't cuss the preacher they can't separate the messenger from the message you know they just had reading king down on the street and pretty soon people got coming up to the church house and preachers brought their evangelists from the other churches in each city and on our day services and listened to the broadcast and got blessed a little bit and after the things about to wind up the pastor where I was preaching called me on the phone about the last day of the meeting said brother Barnard there's a committee here from our association and they want to come down and talk with you if you've got time I said sure he said I'll come along with them and so three men from that Baptist association they came down to the hotel and I know you ain't going to believe this but it's the God's truth they said brother Barnard we want you to come back here next year sometime soon as we can get things arranged and you can and said all 48 of our churches will go together and we'll rent the city auditorium if we can't get the auditorium at that time we'll put up a great big tent and said we'll buy you an hour's time on the radio and we'll have you preach on the radio every day for an hour and then under the tent in the auditorium for a solid month and that sounded good to me and I got straight with them but they said before we say any more there are two conditions I said oh that won't work and I'm going to tell you the two conditions they said first of all we want you to pray about it and see if you could get the mind of the Lord if you thought you could you tell us and we'll set the thing up would you come to our city see there's about 50,000 people a lot of churches inside and all around you know all of them will come together and do the best they could and said if you could if you could make up your mind that this would be the will of God you come and every day on the radio for a solid hour and every night under the tent of the auditorium if you could find it in your heart just to preach on one subject and I said what's that? they said if you could find it in your heart to preach on will God punish sin said nobody here believes that nobody believes it said we're breeding a bunch of infidels and atheists in our Sunday school classes we're telling them to put a little picture store but they don't know nothing about sin or God either said our church members my soul they come to church on Sunday morning and raise hell the rest of the time and said you can't find anybody here that's interested in the gospel whether Jesus is God and whether he died on a cross and if he did what good did it do? he said the reason that they don't believe God fully and that God makes demands of men and women and that God's set to punish sin they said ain't no use trying to keep on going trying to get men to accept Jesus long as they think they don't need him the boy was right down my alley and I fixed a trade with him I said what's the second condition? this is what you Baptist ain't gonna believe and they said we want you to preach a month an hour a day on the radio and every night long as you want to in the tent on one subject not give any kind of a public invitation for a solid month well that sounded awful good to me I'm so sick and tired of begging empty seats to take Jesus I never saw an empty seat converted in my life I never saw anybody real converted before they felt the terrible need for a save I don't believe you'll ever get a human being to be interested one quiff in the Lord Jesus Christ my boy I said that's right down my alley I wish the churches of America would quit this begging people trying to wish Jesus off of them he's to be sought not to be auctioned off he's the price of gold the Savior of the men the Lord of all and you know we traded about a year later they couldn't get the old poor man I went back and I had a tremendous tent I had the hour on the radio and I didn't get quite carried out the bargain I preached three weeks and about half way through my sermon on Thursday night on the big tent for the last fourth week and while I was preaching boy I preached on will God punish sin on the radio and every night I became almost besotted I preached everything I could find in the Bible about it and there's plenty of it and then I used my imagination and after I'd get through preaching every night I'd say good night go on to hell that's where you seem to want to go that was my benediction let's put her up in well that's little difference you know that's little difference you said oh wouldn't you put please take Jesus off our hands we're tired I don't want you taking him you don't want him Jesus isn't found that way but Thursday night of the last week what was to be the last week I did preaching up away and the man way back there he got up and came running down the Salter's trail came up on the platform pushed me aside and said for God's sake preacher I got to say something he broke up my good sermon that's bad next year that was 1951 next year he's going to get out of the penitentiary been in the penitentiary ever since he's president of the bank of that city biggest bank in town he's teacher of Sunday school the deacon in the church and he has two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in the bank he's stolen that much nobody knew it well he got to listen to me on the radio and he got to worry about that then he got to come and hear me on the pen all I say God won't punish sin I prove it he always has he's doing it now he's going to do it some men sins catch up with them in this life and some follow them afterward to the judgment but one way or the other God's going to deal with us I am saying and he got in a terrible shape his little Sunday school teaching wouldn't help him you know that won't save a man the fact he's a deacon that won't save him the fact he's president of the bank he couldn't take care of it and he got to come here and he'd preach and he'd go home at night and I don't know why he'd lock the door and he'd get his bible and he'd get down on his knees and you talk about praying up a storm he just begged God to have mercy on him and save him that's what there ain't no way over if you can do business with God and he just couldn't get God to trade with him a pound and he got so miserable that the day before he came and interrupted my sermon he wrote a letter put it in the mail and admitted that he'd stolen a quarter of a million dollars from the bank got in touch with the chief of police and the powers that ran the bank and there was some policeman there in the congregation waiting to arrest him that night and he knew it and he crawled up there on that platform and confessed to his thoughtful sin and then he just fell down like a sack of sugar and sobbed like his heart would break and then he looked up through his tears after a while and said isn't there anybody that could pray for the saints Oh Mary! God to have mercy on that old sinner who tried to pull the wool over God's eyes come queen before God they arrested him, tried him and sent him to the penitentiary I get a letter once a month from him have for all of these years that's the happiest fellow you ever saw been all these years in prison but bless God there ain't no prison like S.I.N. Sin that bound him ladies and gentlemen went on several more weeks and I hadn't given him kind of invitation to start with he wouldn't let me and I never did get to give a public invitation we had to hire seven people to answer phones we had to keep six people at a time different ones in that tent 24 hours a day to pray for and deal with men and women coming to the tent asking somebody to help them see if there's any way on earth they could get to God ladies and gentlemen we talk about we want the blessing of God I don't know if it will ever happen again in this country but it ain't going to happen until we get back just camping on one thing people need the Savior they don't believe it when they don't believe it they don't believe God's holy they don't believe God don't punish sin unless God punishes sin this word Savior is silly isn't it but if God does punish sin hallelujah for Jesus thank God God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son thank God that he poured out his life blood in my stead