In this sermon, the preacher discusses the importance of preaching the truth of the Gospel to lost people rather than trying to prove doctrines to them. He emphasizes the need to continually remind sinners of their sinful state and their need for salvation. The preacher also expresses his concern about the lack of understanding and experience of God's grace among church members. He believes that God works in a similar way to how He worked in the life of David Brained, bringing people to a place of realizing their lostness and their need for faith in Him. The preacher urges fellow pastors to focus on these truths and to stop trying to force people to be good, but rather to trust in God's sovereign work in salvation.

I'm constantly aware of the fact that there's no substitute for preaching. We must have a balance between teaching and preaching. One of the greatest concerns of my heart has been, and still is, that whatever reproach we suffer, we suffer it for the truth's sake, not for error. And I realize that it is tremendously easy, it is just awfully easy, to so handle what we call the doctrines of grace as to make them the enemies of the gospel and the enemy of the sinner, and they are not. I can call to mind so many young preachers who think they are suffering today for the truth they preach. In reality, they're suffering for the fact they will not sit down and study like dogs until the Holy Spirit clears their own minds and hearts and they can be clear in their expression. I want us not to butcher the gospel, but to proclaim it. We preach the law and the gospel to the unsaved. But I do know that by the foolishness of preaching, please God to save those whom he saves. And I like for us, if the Lord wills, and he seems to be leading me in that direction, to attempt to preach to you this week, at least through the weeknights, on one word. That's the word L-O-S-T. Laws. I'd like for us to read first of all from the book of Ezekiel, chapter 34, and the purpose of the preaching this week, and you will be profited more if you can attend right along because each message will prepare for the other. And we'll not nearly exhaust the subject if we spend these six nights on trying to find out, not simply in our heads, but in our hearts and experiences, what the Bible means by the word L-O-S-T. Laws. Laws. L-O-S-T. Laws. I want us this week, God willing, to rediscover the teaching of the word of God on how we got lost and what possible chance there is of being recovered from our lost condition. Tonight, I want us to think together on how God proceeds to get men lost. And tomorrow night, God willing, I want to find out with you when we got lost. And I think the Lord may be pleased we've prayed some about it. I had the blessed privilege of studying under the man who, I suppose, was the greatest student of theology, the study of man and God, that this generation and the ones to before has produced. Dr. Conner, who's now gone on to glory. Worthy successor to Dr. Carroll and Dr. Mullins. It's said that the two greatest thinkers, the fastest it produced in the South, Dr. E.Y. Mullins, who's been in here for some time, and now Dr. Conner. I sat under him as he was head of the Department of Theology, and I had a terrible time. When I entered this seminary, I had been preaching about two years, and I was pretty much an authority on the Bible. I find the less we know, the more we think we know. Now that's so. Folks I have trouble with are the folks that never read the Bible, but they certainly know all about it. Folks that have built up a philosophy that's not biblical, and they're hard to deal with. I remember this teacher. It's pitiful how dumb he was when I was going to school then, but he improved a lot after I got out. He really did. And I've been sitting at his feet for 20 odd years since I got out of school. And things that he would try to pound into my dumb head then, 20 years later some of them are kind of what he's talking about. And the memory of many of his statements, one of which I want to introduce the message tonight. He used to say, young gentlemen, you can't find out the meaning of a word in the Bible by consulting the dictionary. He said words mean what they mean in the Bible, not what the dictionary says they mean. He used to repeat that over and over and over again. Words mean what they mean in the Bible, not what the dictionary says they mean. That word tonight that we have before us tonight, it means what it means in the Bible. It doesn't mean maybe what we think it does, or what the dictionary says it does. What does it mean to be lost? What does it mean to be lost? We're demanded in the scripture by the Lord Jesus Christ to give not holy things to dogs, or to cast pearls before the swine. What's the meaning of that? One meaning, of course, is that the sooner we quit trying to wish a savior on people who are not lost, the better we'll redeem the time. We want to look at this word, lost, and two or three things will guard us. We'll want to look at it, try to find out what it means. It takes us all week. Maybe we'll have some conception of it. And remembering two or three things that we'll have to remember if we come anywhere near at the Bible meaning of this word, lost. And the first thing is we'll have to remember that whatever our texts that we take say where they use the word lost, none of them does violence to two or three truths. The first truth that I lay before you is this, that if this Bible teaches anything, we can't read it at all, even haphazardly, without coming smack dab face to face with this truth, that the God of the Bible saves lost people. He saves lost people. We just miss the meaning of this word, lost, unless we have got enough of the truth of the Bible in our heads and hearts to find out that God saves lost people. And we're going to have to find out again that God saves everybody that's lost. There's not going to be a single person who's lost that God does not save. That's right. That's right. Now I want to show you in the Scripture where the Scripture uses the same word and has entirely different meanings. In Ezekiel 34, and then we'll turn to Luke 19, we'll find out that the Bible interprets itself and the word lost means one thing. Then we're going to turn to Corinthians and find out that the word lost means something entirely different. That's why you can't use your dictionary now if you're going to find out what the Bible teaches. You've got to let the Bible interpret itself. In Ezekiel 34 and 16, we have the plain statement, 34, 16, God says, I will do my dead level best to seek. No, it doesn't say that, does it? It doesn't say I will make an effort to seek. No, this is an absolute statement of God, no ifs and ands and buts about it. I will seek that which was lost. And he'll not seek them just to turn them loose, but he'll bring again that which was driven away. We'll do it. There's no conditions yet. There's no if man will meet the proper terms. This is a plain statement of a sovereign God just saying this is it. I'm going to do this very thing. And we'll bind up that which was broken. Now God says I will do that. Now you can't read that scripture and do anything like honor to the laws of interpretation without seeing that the word lost there does not refer to everybody that ever was born. It just can't do that because we've got sense enough to know this, that God so far hasn't sought in such a way as to find and bring again to himself that which was lost and that which was driven away. And he says I'll strengthen that which was sick. And then he says but I will destroy the fat and the strong. I will feed them with judgment. That is the plain, unequivocal, unequivocal, that's the big word is it. It means it's in the way of St. Anne's about it, statement of God. That word lost there has a peculiar meaning. In chapter 19 of Luke's gospel, the reading at verse 10, we have another statement that we need to read again. And we need particularly to read this in view of the fact that taken out of its context, it has been so used as to make a defeated Christ the one this world thinks about. I was reading in some Baptist paper one of the editors, the editor of the Alabama Baptist, no it was in one of the thing papers, one of the, I forget, News and Life or something. Some editor, some columnist was calling attention to this fact. Everybody seems to have more sense than us preachers that the sissy pictures that adorn the walls of what we call our church buildings now attempting to picture what the Lord Jesus looked like are doing a great deal to corrupt the Christian forces of America and effeminate sissy Jesus that wouldn't hurt a fly. Now this text, think I've been abused while the Son of Man's come to seek and to save that which was lost. And there you've had that scripture applied that Jesus Christ is standing outside the door of every man's heart and he's striving but he can't get in. And thus you have this generation fed on an effeminate Jesus who cannot move except his man allows him to move. That's not anything to argue about. That's something to weep over. The Son of Man's come to seek, not to make an effort to seek but to seek and not to make an effort to save but to save that which was lost. Now you can't get around that kind of language. This word lost means something peculiar. We better find out what kind of a person a lost person is. Now we'll come back to that but let's turn to 2 Corinthians and here we have a passage of scripture that for the sake of being broad as I can we'll perhaps admit that the word lost here means an entirely different group of people in verse 3 of chapter 4. Chapter 4 of 2 Corinthians verse 3. But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. In that sense the whole world of Adam's ruined and fallen race is described in the word word as lost. They're lost. Do you follow me now? In Ezekiel, in Luke and in 2 Corinthians the same word used but they ain't talking about the same crowd. They're dead sure enough. In 2 Corinthians everybody, as God looks on the fallen race of Adam's and Laura's every human being is lost and away from God. Is that right? But in Luke the son of man came to seek and to say. Now I grant you that we are not doing violence to the scripture that we would interpret that scripture to say that he came and his minister was in the direction of going after and bringing to himself the lost race of Adam. But it means more than that. It means a great deal more than that. You have to qualify these words and say he came to seek and to make an effort to save. Yet that word lost means everybody. Also, this word lost carries a world of meaning. Because everybody that's lost in this sense the Lord's going to find them. Amen. And the Lord's going to save them. Wonder what this word means. Wonder what it means. I want you tonight to study from David Brainerd a little bit. I carry usually with me 2 books. Inside the Bible where I have room I carry McShane's memoirs. The Scotchman who was so mightily used of God died when he was 29. And I carry David Brainerd's journal. I think perhaps I throw every other book I've got away except the Bible. I keep those too. I read them for my own soul's need. I read them because I'm constantly hearing that the old message no good now. The old message no good now. I read them for my own need to something to feed my own soul. And in David Brainerd's journal he mentions the 4 things that made him mad at God before God saved him. David Brainerd is the father of modern missions. Through reading his exploits William Carey got a vision of a lost world. Hudson Taylor and those men all the great fathers of the modern mission movement studied the defeat and drank of the example of David Brainerd. He was engaged to marry the daughter of Jonathan Edwards greatest theologian America has ever produced. But he felt called to preach the gospel to the Indians up in New York State, parts of Canada. He too died when he was 30, 31, something like that. And if you've never read his journals of how he took this gospel we believe it is the gospel and preached it to those heathen Indians. And how the gospel conquered among those heathen. You read it and it will just make you a little impatient but it will just make your heart leap within you as you think about what could be done now. If in the un-evangelized, as we call it unreached territories in the world there's still plenty of them we could get there first with the gospel and those heathen never heard the proverbial gospel that most of our missionaries give. And that would be the message. One came to me in North Carolina not long ago, a pastor and he said, Brother Barnard, do you know a foreign missionary that preaches the gospel? And I said, well, let's take that foreign off. I don't like that foreign missionary. I'm just a missionary. Somebody sent me a heathen with the gospel. Maybe they were preaching in China or Kingsport. I'd love for us to drop those terms foreign or home or anything. I do. Well, he said, I'm rebuked. He said, you're right. He said, do you know any man that's crossed the seas anywhere calling himself a missionary that preaches the gospel? And I said, I'm sure there are many. Well, I'm personally acquainted with only one. That's the only one I know. I know there are others. There ain't many, but most of your missionary money is going to tell the Chinese and Africans to save themselves just like they're being taught in America. I don't see any use to go around lying to the Chinese any more than we do here. And he said, well, give me this man's name and address. He said, our church has come to the place that we'll never give another dime to anything that we do not believe what little brains we've got is being true to the souls of man. He's right. That's right. This ain't coming. It's coming small, but the Lord's in it. And so that church is helping this dear man, Brother James Stewart. They're helping him. Now, that may sound a little pessimistic. How many missionaries do you know preaching the gospel? Now, our church supports missions. Is that so? Well, what are they preaching? I put serious in it. Isn't it serious that God's people are taking God's money out of their pocketbooks and sending folks over to China to poison the Chinese in the name of Jesus Christ? This ain't getting serious. David Brainerd died about 30 and is to be following Lord Jonathan Edwards. Brother Rhodes, he's the only preacher America has ever produced that earned a doctor's degree. He is the only preacher America has produced that made a contribution to religious truth That's right. His treatment of the human will. Never been anything like it before. The greatest brain we've ever had. He's the man that got fired in his church for insisting that the church ought to be composed of the same people. Did you know that? His church dismissed him. Oh, yeah. And... He preached to David Brainerd's funeral and he made this statement that just burns in my brain as I go up and down the country. He said, in his interpretation of the gospel of Jesus Christ the belief of which will contribute to the church of Christ one David Brainerd in any century's time is worthy of our investigation. And I'm saying that to brother preachers as I meet them and they talk about how crazy we are and I say, how about your congregation who is striving as the whole of this No, sir. This generation of church men was terribly afraid of that word. That's right. That's the truth. Do they give you the impression, brother pastor that a work of grace has been wrought in their lives that has changed them? No. And I look at my brother pastors and I meet a lot of them I don't run from them, look them right straight in the eye I say, it's time you boys started thinking about this you just quit, well quit getting your whip and trying to whip the people and make them be good. That's right. This thing's got to be the inner transformation of character. That's right. My sister showed me a card the church where she worships, Florence, Alabama Sunday before last they had church loyalty day and everybody was supposed to be there and sign the name you know and there wasn't that as best that you know, put them on the carpet and the church I go to they demand that you sign a pledge card agree to do this, agree to do that and I won't agree to do any of it and I'm not a good church member so we're trying to make people be what they don't want to be Did you get what Jonathan Edwards said? Any interpretation of the gospel the belief of which will contribute to the church in one given century David Brainerd is worthy of our investigation No such Christ-like character perhaps has ever walked on the stage of American Christianity It'd do you good to throw away some of the foolishness you're spending money for and buy that journal and soak your soul in it learn the language of the Bible see how that man demonstrated what we've not yet learned we are proud of the fact that we're misunderstood but he took this great gospel to those heathen Indians and saw it transform them in all of their unspeakable filth that had to be preached through an interpreter that couldn't put on any sideshow or use human persuasion to have just the gospel just the gospel and in reading his journal I came upon these four things that made him so mad at God before God saved him or it'd be better in the process of bringing him to the place of lostness it made him awful mad and I've been studying it for months and I've come to the conviction that God who's sovereign and none will have the same degree of experience but he goes about getting people lost just exactly like he did David Bray I want to bring this message tonight and introduce what we're going to be on all week I want you to follow me a little bit I want to give you these four things and to focus them I want to make this statement thousands of preachers are in America who preach the truth about the virgin birth of Christ multiplied thousands of them fight you for the fact the truth of the inspiration of the word of God multitudes of preachers today feel faithful to proclaim the awfulness of hell that awaits the sinner multitudes of preachers today will preach that the sinner is guilty and that he's deservedly guilty and that there's no salvation at all possible for any sinner except that he's guilty and that he's deservedly guilty and that there's no salvation at all possible for any sinner except that which is in Christ Jesus but the one thing that this generation is not hearing and the one thing that marks what we're trying to do and what we're willing to die for and live for is this this generation is faithfully being warned perhaps as faithful as it ever was of the awfulness of hell that awaits the sinner of the certainty of judgment of the fearfulness of sin of the fact that salvation is alone in Jesus Christ but what this generation is not being told is not only that sinners are in death row awaiting execution condemned already the door locked locked in the dungeon and bondage house of sin just waiting for the stroke of death to hurl them out into the hands of a sin-hating and a sin-punishing God but this generation's being told from pulpits all over the country that they have within their own pocket the key and that anytime they will they may get up and unlock the door and save themselves the issue that we need to make burn all over this country God helpless to quit trying to prove something shut men up to this fact that sinners are not only in death row that sinners are not only not on probation that doesn't been tried and condemned and God Almighty is they are under His wrath now nothing but His mercy keeps them from being sent to hell the door is locked they are bound by the cords of their own sin and they haven't got the key they haven't got the key they can't get out it's not up to the sinner to decide whether he will walk out or not it's up to the sovereign Christ whether he will let him out that's the difference dear ones that's the difference oh that's the difference we are just wrong if we don't see that I'll give you preacher after preacher that will preach on the blood of Christ make you sob like your heart will break and preach on the terrors of hell and all of that but the one thing this generation is being lied to about is that they are being told that if they have within themselves their wherewithal to get out of the dungeon anytime they make a stand now I want us to see how God locked up old David Brangham to where he got plumb lost oh that's the issue when he prayed out put our preaching clothes on sometimes if I had my way about it I'd get little groups like you and I'd put a $25 head down and kill everyone of you we're too interested in proving we're right we're too interested in standing for the truth we better learn to be the friend of the gospel the friend of sinners and I say that the fellow we honor the jungle of Africa needs to be told the truth about himself and the folks in Kingsport need to be told the truth about themselves and the one truth this generation's not hearing is the truth that in Adam we lost the key we lost the key let me illustrate it this way suppose somebody hollers fire and brother Ketner says the house's on fire but the door's unlocked and it's not burning much yet we'll finish out the service because we got the key but suppose the smoke comes piling in here we rush to the door find out there's no key in the door we reach in our pocket we got no key ourselves we'll have to get a little concerned if you'll follow me now this week I'll help you if you wanted to to change your witness to lost people you ain't getting nowhere trying to prove a doctrine to lost people we better, listen to me we better don't you think I'm not a friend of doctrine I'll stand up and be counted various attacks but it's to be taught to God's people to God's people what the old sinner needs is just to keep telling him where he is he's in death row he may be the next one he's right down in death row and he's there because of his own sin and he's guilty not to be pitied but punished and God help him he can't get out he lost the key he can't unlock the door he can't unlock the door while you walk out here in the streets of Kingsport tomorrow and everybody will admit they're sinners and they'll say sure I know I'm lost they don't do such thing they don't know they're lost like the Bible says lost people are that are going to get saved in the first place David Brainerd God showed mercy on him and showed him the strictness of his holy law I think that this is right that in the process for it is a process as we time conscious people have to consider it the process that God uses to to bring a sinner to his recognition of his abject sure enough lost condition for a man when he finds out he's lost going to start screaming for somebody to find him the reason men are not screaming for my Lord to save them is they do not believe they are lost amen they need a little help but they're not lost they're not lost as I understand the way the Lord proceeds he arrests a man and puts him under the clutches of the holy law and if he's going to bring that fellow to salvation he'll show him the spirituality of the law that it's a matter of inward motive and he'll show him that God almighty will not will not save anybody at the expense of the least demand of his law not being fulfilled he'll show him that God sent everybody in the world to hell before he'll violate the least requirement of his holy law amen and this generation, this generation never heard of the law of God what we call fundamental preachers always bragging about we're not under the law until this generation of school children couldn't quote the ten commandments if you're going to fry them in oil before sundown how many of you can quote them? the law of God, it's a vague term that nobody's concerned about that's right that's right and yet were it not for the law of God no sin would ever have been imputed to anybody for where there's no law there's no sin this generation has as much respect for God's law as it does man and that's not any and yet God almighty in bringing a fellow to his loss that's his lost condition a fellow that's lost like who Zacchaeus was in our text in Luke puts him under the law and shows him that he will by no means clear the guilt did you get that? I don't believe you did he will by no means clear the guilt let me repeat it the only people that God's going to save are people who are absolutely without guilt with reference to the law that means that there must be a union in eternity between the savior and the sinner and the savior take upon himself the guilt absolutely take upon himself the guilt therefore there's none on that sinner he'll not clear the guilt he'll not do it he'll by no means, there's no hook or crook, there's no way to talk him out of it there must be this union with Christ Jesus well a fellow gets a little smattering of the law and he feels a little uneasy but he ain't plumb lost yet the second thing that made David Brainerd mad was he found out that God requires faith that the crowning point of God's dealing with the soul is that salvation is applied to man through the channel of faith God requires it God saved no man apart from that man as an act of his own will and intelligence of course it's got to be worked on by God embracing Christ, laying hold on Christ, receiving Christ, surrendering Christ whatever term you want to use if it's biblical the sinner like a starving beggar has got to reach out and lay hold on the Lord Jesus Christ and his glory in person and word and the thing that made David Brainerd so mad was that God required faith and he found within himself no ability to exercise faith Oh my soul, my pastor, bless his heart I feel like a dog when I'm home and go out to the house of the Lord I don't believe a word he preaches, he knows I don't I don't know what to do, I feel so sorry for God's people In all of the section I live, I don't know where you can hear the gospel I've been there all the Sundays I've been on there and the last time I heard him he said sinner if you open your heart Jesus will come in I sat there and I said oh my soul there ain't any of that sinner that sinner will go away from there never dreaming what a desperate condition he's in how that sinner needs to be faithful and told by some godless bastard that he sits there and God must open his heart he can't open his heart like that man was a sinner who heard that and was left to believe that it was up to him and of course as long as it's up to me and I've got the ability there's no use to get overtly concerned about it if I can open my own heart every day there's no reason why I can't tomorrow and you didn't try to scare me into saying maybe I'll be dead tomorrow I'm pretty good health, I'll be around, I expect it I'm a preacher, I don't intend to go to hell I'm going to lay hold on Christ some of these days I know there's no salvation except in him but since it's up to me to open my heart I'll get around to that later you see there's no conviction who's scared how can there be beloved? how can there be? Lydia, the Lord opened her heart but sinners are being told now, you just do it yourself but David Brainerd found out he couldn't open his heart you see David sat under men like Jonathan Edwards those old timers that read the book and he studied it and he found out that God required faith and he couldn't exercise it he got mad at God it's not right for God to require something of me I can't produce it David found out whether it was right or not, it was so it was so I thought old David was getting pretty mad for now and a little bit lost, just a little bit the third thing that made Brainerd mad at God as God was bringing him to salvation, getting him lost he found out that God could give him faith or withhold it God could do you the work my heart just bleeds as I hitchhike up and down the country I say Lord, you're going to let this generation go to hell trusting in itself not sour grapes but I'm looking God's people in the eyes I sit in their parlors and I talk to them I'm laying on them the high crime of supporting a so-called gospel that doesn't shut the centers up the fact that they are in death row and the only way to get out is through faith and they haven't got the ability themselves and God can give it to them or withhold it as he pleases old David got mad he got mad, he said it's not right but I don't know if it's right or not, it's so see I'm not interested in proving something I wish I could, I wish some of you millionaires in their billion dollars tomorrow buy up every network in the world just one sermon, I'd try to preach it and I'd tell this generation if I had one chance whether it be to come out of the heads of their business that they're in death row we'll see tomorrow night they got there as an act of their own free will unhindered by God and undeceived by the devil but they're down there in death row and the only way to get out is through faith in Jesus Christ and they haven't got it themselves it cometh by hearing, they haven't got it it's the gift of God and God can give it or withhold it ah, if Kingsport could hear that from the pulpits next Lord's Day to the Sunday morning crowds somebody might get a little concerned next Sunday afternoon the only way I can keep out of hell the only way I can know God is to lay hold on Christ that I can't but when I lay hold, where is he? where is he? Job said, oh where is he that I might run to him just where is he? is he at a mourner's beach? or is he in a choir room? is he in a chair? where is he? he's not here in the flesh coming to Jesus don't mean some physical act it's a spiritual act faith God can give it or withhold it and the last thing that got old David Brainerd Plumb lost not only the strictness of God's law not only that God requires faith and he didn't have it you mean tell me a sinner like you or me unhated by the spirit of God you mean tell me you could lay hold on a spirit my Lord's not here in the flesh you can't shake hands with Jesus you can't come to him in the flesh who shall believe that Jesus is the Christ is born of God that's not the way to be saved the only people that do believe he's Christ is the folks who've been born of God you've got to have the new birth before you can believe nobody but the one who's been born again or a plain fool believes that Jesus born out of wedlock lived in Nazareth no good thing ever came out of Nazareth nobody was anybody ever heard of him never was thirty miles away from home didn't live but a little while and was crucified as a criminal horribly not inside but outside the city while the religious people were going to church you mean tell me that you believe he's the son of God you can do that yourself well that's sin ah it takes a miracle for a man like me to believe that the last thing that made John and Ed was mad and got him plumb lost was that God could save him or damn him this generation don't believe that therefore this generation ain't under conviction do you know anybody screaming for the Lord's saving? thing that's broken my whole heart I recognize my faults and my bluntness and all that but twenty some odd years trying to evangelize in our churches the thing that has broken this old preacher's heart I'm badly foolish I'm telling the truth now where I've seen the spirit Whitman centers down I've aroused the awfulest opposition it seems that church life today we will not tolerate Holy Spirit conviction I've seen them that couldn't eat and sleep I've seen them in the throes of Holy Ghost conviction it would seem to me that the people would rejoice but they don't they don't they don't so I think the only hope is to build new works and I believe until we get our hands on them God will get glory out of them where the Holy Spirit would be welcome to come take an old proud sinner like Ed Kitten don't even know it's in command but make him real to you bud the way he's hemmed up in a way to get out you got to have a perfect substitute perfectly satisfying the law in every detail or you got to be sent to heaven where the Holy Spirit can come and take the truth and apply it to you and show you the only hope is in Christ laying hold on him you haven't got a chance and where the Lord can give you faith over the whole where he can save you or damn you as he pleases this generation hasn't heard that no they won't tolerate the idea that God can be perfect God and save or damn as he pleases old Rothbard is sitting down in death row can't get out and it finally dawned on him that God didn't have to get him out oh my soul Psalm 177 says then, then, then, then can you quote it for me four times in the same psalm those who were in trouble did what cried unto the Lord oh yeah old David Brady got in trouble he died and couldn't get out God wasn't on the obligation to get him out wasn't in a way he could make God come down the hospital all old David Brady could do is sit down in death row and cry oh my son of David have mercy on me walking down the corridor of death row while thou art calling do not pass me by do not pass me by just stand and sing it pass me not yet, O David, here am I, old man while thou art calling do not pass me by Savior, Savior hear my humble cry while thou art calling do not pass me by let me at the door of mercy find a sweet relief let me at the gate of freedom let my unbelief Savior, Savior hear my humble cry while thou art calling do not pass me by or some conception of what it means to be lost to fall upon God's people would you hear brother Barnard without any sour grapes not thinking that God called him straight and anybody out but trying to walk in the light he has you're a loved one if he attends the churches of this day he'll never find out he's lost he'll get fed on his own ability to get out of the mess he's in by saying a little prayer God's been merciful to me a sinner walking an aisle or taking Jesus he'll never dawn on him what a terrible shape he's in my soul, I wish we'd learned to tell sinners the truth they believe there's a hell they believe there's some danger but they ain't much excited cause I know I'm telling the truth I've been told what you call fundamental preaching of this day that it's up to them for them to decide whether they'll walk out of the cell or not it's not a... that's how it is