In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of demonstrating one's faith rather than just talking about it. He uses the example of Jesus, who didn't preach about his lordship but demonstrated it through his actions. The preacher refers to the conversation between Jesus and Pilate, where Jesus states that his kingdom is not of this world. The sermon also highlights the significance of finding joy and peace in Jesus Christ, both in his crucifixion and his exalted position on God's throne. The preacher concludes by stating that loving the Lord and beholding his face will be the occupation of heaven.

Chapter 16 and verse 22. If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema, maranatha. The word anathema means to be accursed, to be damned, to be destroyed. The word maranatha means the Lord coming, and the statement is that if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, he will be accursed of God. That's a tremendous statement, isn't it? There's a warning, if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, not what he can do for you, but him. Nothing in the Bible about seeking him so he can do something for you, but the Scripture enjoins you to seek him for what he is. And there's a statement, if this is God's word, if this is the word of God, this is something to consider. If any man—that's wide enough to have a message to Ralph Barney than to you—if any man, there he is, love not the Lord Jesus Christ, at the coming of the Lord, that man shall be accursed. This text suggests three questions to me that I hope the Lord will help me to ask and answer in your daily. The first question suggested by this text is this. What is the love that one must have in his heart toward the Lord Jesus Christ, or at his coming, experience separation from God, be cast away into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone? Before I attempt to give what I believe is the Bible answer to that question, what kind of love toward the Lord must I have if I hope not to be accursed by Him, to be damned by Him at His coming? I want to suggest something of the tremendous importance of that expression, if any man were not the Lord Jesus Christ. Not to love Him. And I say again, not like this generation of church members. Just get something out of them. Always bragging about what He's done for you. Wouldn't know the Lord if He met you in the road. You don't love Him, not for anything He's done for you, but Him, for who He is. You're not saved, you know that. Oh, this testimony made, I praise the Lord, He did this and He did this for me. You don't know nothing about salvation. You've got to love the Lord, not what He does for you. It doesn't say if any man doesn't love what the Lord does for people. It says, if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ at His coming, he'll be accursed. Not to love the Lord means high revenge against the highest throne in the universe, the throne of God upon which Jesus Christ now sits. God in time past spoke to us through His Father, through This is the Son of my Lord, said the Father at the baptism of Jesus Christ. This is the Son of my Lord, in whom I am well pleased. Hear me here. Not to love this one, the last word from God, the Son of God Lord, the one that God Almighty finds His joy and His satisfaction and pleasure in. The one in whom we are accepted. Ah, yeah, I'm talking about accepting Jesus until I want to vomit. The good word would be, have I been accepted in the Beloved One? That's Bible language. No acceptance for the only man that's ever lived. Yes! The Father could find joy in and rest in and peace in as He looked at Him as His Son. That's the reason there's no salvation apart from being put in Christ. And Christ put in you the hope of glory. Not to love Him is the highest rebellion against the highest throne in the universe. Can we set aside this word from God? No sir. The very essence of all sin is arrogance. It's setting up the little puppet God of self on the throne of our hearts instead of the rightful ruler, the Lord Jesus Christ. Nobody on God's earth got a right to rule your life except Christ. You haven't got it. You forbid it in Adam. There is no New Testament salvation without total submission to the Lord Jesus Christ. The essence of salvation is the collapse of the regime of sin and the enthronement of Jesus Christ as Lord. What they call the gospel today, this empty ease of believism, is little more than acceptance of truth, which still leaves men and women uncommitted when truth is applied to life. Well, you've got all those terms. He's saved, but He hasn't consecrated. He's saved, but He hasn't lived in right. He's saved, but He hasn't separated. All that junk, you know, the few boys tell books. They cut it out. Man wouldn't save unless he's committed to the Lord. Now, I'm not preaching the deeper life or the victorious life. I don't believe in those things. Maybe you do. But I am preaching the gateway to life. Here it is, at the cross where self is crucified and Jesus Christ is enthroned. That's salvation. All of these movements we've got to try to improve on God's salvation are not of God. You can't improve on salvation. That's it. For salvation is Christ, and if you have Christ, you've got all God's got. He hasn't got anything for people except Christ. Every good and perfect gift comes from Him above. But it's all in Christ. All the love God has is in Christ. All the holiness God has is in Christ. Everything's in Christ. Then salvation's just something, brother. What we need to do is go to preach in the gospel, the full gospel, and that's we're preaching the whole Christ. And we're going to have to have all of these deeper life, victorious life, Catholic movements and all of that, that have occupied professing Christians so long as they're good for us, to wrap their righteous robes around themselves and try to improve the flesh, let the world go to hell. What men and women need is to come to the cross and die for self and enthrone Jesus Christ as Lord. That ain't the deeper life, that's just salvation. Just salvation. There is no salvation apart from what I'm talking about. The road to hell is more than a skid row. The drunkards and adulterers, the road to hell may be the path you are walking on that brings you into church membership without self having been dethroned. It was by submission to His Father's will that the Lord Jesus Christ won the right for us to step out of slavery into freedom. He was obedient unto His Father up to the point of death, even the death of the cross. I came not to do my will, but the will of Him that sent me. It cost total submission to Almighty God for the Lord Jesus Christ to win the right to be your Lord and Savior. His total submission to God from the throne He left to the cross from which He died, won for believers the right of His life and His power and His faith and His purity. And yet there are those today who say, well, just believe and decide for Christ and that's all. But the word of God says, no, no, submit, yield, surrender. You cannot go into glory except you're under the rule of one who won the right for you to enter heaven. It cost Him absolute submission to God to win. It'll cost you absolute submission to Christ to be saved. That's how much it cost. All on God that's going to cost you. And if you ever get saved, it's just going to cost you the death of self and the enthronement of Jesus Christ. And that'll have to be done again tomorrow. You'll have to learn to die daily and crown Jesus Christ Lord daily. Amen. I'm talking sense to you tonight. Don't go to hell trusting your little old decision and your profession when you are still on the throne and you decide what you'll do and you decide what you love and you decide everything. You lost your right to decide. Nobody got a right to decide for you except Him. The ABCs of God's eternal salvation are first, acceptance of the sovereign will of Jesus Christ in your life. B, enjoying the blessings of the salvation He purchased with His blood. And C, having lived a life where you're being formed in Him, where there is being formed in you the very character of the Lord Jesus Christ, where you'll not become saved until you're just exactly like Christ. And the man or woman who isn't being conformed daily into the express image of Jesus Christ, you're more like Christ today than you were yesterday. You miss Christ. You don't know Him. You're going to hell, and when He comes, you'll be accursed. Job means this, because everybody ain't so easy. He says, I'm going to make them exactly like Christ. And if He's not making you like Christ, you don't know Him. Now to a definite, precise answer to my first question. What is the love that I must have in my heart toward the Lord Jesus Christ, if when He comes I shall not be accursed, but shall be blessed? Here it is. We must find Jesus in His office work. That is, on the job as a supreme complacency and satisfaction and joy and rest and pleasure of our life. We must find, as we look from day to day, as Paul says, the Christendom. 2 Corinthians 3.18. We must find the greatest complacency, satisfaction, joy, pleasure, rest, in looking at Jesus Christ on the job, in His office work. We must find our satisfaction in His person as He performs His job. God gave them a job to do this. He came not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me. Now, my friends, it is entirely possible, and I believe this is true, ninety-five percent of church members today, they're not hypocrites, they're earnest. They find satisfaction in the Lord Jesus, but they don't like Him on the job. If there's a way to accept Christ apart from the work that the Father gave Him to do, that He's working at now, I think we could bring everybody in Leesburg to Christ tomorrow. We can see and draw back from Jesus Christ on the job. But we must find the chief joy of our life, the chief rest and peace of our life, the supreme complacency and satisfaction of our life, more than mother, children, job, church, anything on God's earth. If anything gives you more joy or as much as just your daily contemplation of the Lord Jesus Christ as He's working at the job the Father sent Him to do, anything on God's earth gives you more joy or as much joy as that. You miss Christ. We must find our supreme delight, our supreme joy in the Lord Jesus Christ at work, working on the job. We must come to agree with Almighty God's version, this is the Son of my Lord, in whom I am well pleased. Are you well pleased with the Lord Jesus Christ as He's now working at the job the Father's given Him to do? Father said, I'm well pleased. And this here is where you get your chief joy. If your children give you more delight than I'm talking about or as much, you are lost. If your wife gives you more delight or as much as what I'm talking about now, this must be it, brother. He will not share your affection with anybody. Now, we have certain things in life where we find, in which we find a complacency, a rest, a satisfaction. We find satisfaction just thinking about America, thinking about our home, thinking about our jobs, thinking about our friends. We like to think about them. Thinking about our recreations. Work five days a week, and if you have some recreation, you think, my boy, be glad when Saturday comes, and I'll give you a little recreation. That's wholesome. We couldn't live if we didn't have some things that bring us joy. See what I mean? But Jesus Christ on the job must bring us our chief joy, our chief rest, our chief satisfaction. Now, the word love looks in two different directions. There's what the theologians call benevolent love. Benevolent. The word benevolent means will, and benevolent means good. It simply means the love of goodwill. For instance, there's a drunkard, and you may love him with a benevolent love, you pity him. You'd love to see him safe, but you do not find any joy in thinking about him. Isn't that right? You like to help him, and you can love him in that sense, that you pity him. You're sorry for him. You were doing good. You have goodwill towards him. I could speak of the fact that in that sense God loves every sinner, in that he pities them, and that he sincerely desires their salvation. For God sincerely desires. He hasn't decreed it, but he sincerely desires that all men should be saved. It may be a little too deep, but that's so. God has desire expressed in the gospel. God has the will of command expressed in the law. He suffers it to be defeated, for he commands people in the law, and they don't keep it. He desires in the gospel that all men be saved, but they don't respond. But thank God he's decreed that some men shall be saved, and if he didn't, nobody would be. But you may say that God, Matthew chapter 5, tells us we may join God if we would be perfect and prove ourselves to be children of our Heavenly Father, Matthew chapter 5, verse 46. We may have the same attitude. God, in that sense, would do good toward all men. In that sense, God loves all men, for he causes the rain to come on the just and the unjust, and the sun to shine on the good and the evil. So you may have that benevolent love toward the drunkard or the harlot or the thief or somebody, but you don't think about them with great joy, do you? You wouldn't say, this is my drunkard friend in whom I'm well pleased. You don't find satisfaction there. Neither does God. One of the silliest things I ever hear of the group down on the land is that God loves the sinner, but he hates the saint. That's just downright silly, because the sin cannot exist apart from the one who commits it. And while God has a love of benevolence, he pities that sinner in his sins. He doesn't look on him with complacency and says, Behold that sinner. I sure like to look at him. I find my joy and my peace and my rest and my satisfaction in that old guy out there blowing the smoke of his unbelief in my nostrils and shaking his fist in my face. No. God doesn't find any peace and joy in rebellious sinners. But when you come to loving the Lord Jesus Christ, you've got to love him with a benevolent love. He doesn't need your pity. He's in throne. You don't need to pity him, do you? You don't need to wish him well. He's in throne. Amen. You don't need to wish you could help him out. He's on the throne. He's on the throne. Oh, my soul, we love him, not with pity, not because we're sorry for him, not because we want to help him out, but the love that we must have for him is not the love of goodwill to him, but it's the love of complacency as we contemplate him in his office work. We find there rest and peace and joy and satisfaction in him. Now, this must be supreme. In Matthew chapter 10, the Lord said, if you love father and mother more than me, you're not worthy of me. This is supreme. Tomorrow night we're going to bring you real claims the Lord made when you hear every one of them. Now, Brandon is the world's biggest monster of God Almighty. There's no halfway measure. He's either almighty God's son in the sun, or he's the worst blasphemer and the most terrible monster this world ever knew. He's not good man, but he's not God. He's a liar and everything else, or he's God. I'm telling you, when you look squarely in the face of the claims of Jesus Christ, you've got to curse God and hope to die. For thou art his son. And I look you in the face, my friends, when I meet you at the judgment, how rememberless of all the force there is in my soul, that you must find your supreme joy and satisfaction in Jesus Christ. He wants me more to you than family, church, or anything on God's earth. If it doesn't, he can't be his disciple. He demands. Man, isn't that something? He says, you must love me more than you do your wife. You don't ought to have sin with him. That's right. When I come, I'll curse you and catch you in good time. For a mere man to make a claim like that brings him as a monster or a fool. He's either a fool or a monster, or he's the God of the universe. There's no halfway measure to it. Now, my friends, we might be best tickled to death with Jesus and his person. He's such a nice fellow. He called little children to him and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, for such is the kingdom of God. And he didn't even step on a violet, you know, and was so gentle with everybody except the religious people. And he's such a nice person. His teachings are nice and sweet. But oh, when we look at him on the job, some people just will not come to him as he's working at the job. May I illustrate it? I could say that I am a great admirer of Jack John Fitzgerald Kennedy. He seems to be a very brainy man. I've talked with men who talk with him, they say he's a very cultured gentleman. He's smart as a whip. And I'd say he's got a lot of money, got a lovely family, he's gracious. I sure like Jack Kennedy. But I don't like him as president, I could say. But he is president, isn't he? And there's no way on earth I can have any dealings with Jack Kennedy unless I deal with him on the job. He's working as the president of the United States. I think I could like Nikita Khrushchev. He seems to be a jolly sort of a fellow. Farmer comes to town. I've seen him on television, heard of him. Got a sense of humor, you know. Seems like a hell of a fellow, well met. Margin for grip. But I don't like him as the chairman of the Communist Party. But there's no way on earth I can have any dealings with the person Nikita Khrushchev. Because as he's performing his work in his job, as the leader worldwide of a Communist movement that threatens this whole world. And brother, it won't do to say I like Jesus Christ, but I don't like him on the job. I'm coming to tell you now that you're going to come to the place where you find your chiefest rest and peace and joy day by day by contemplating him, thinking about him, looking at him with eyes of faith. As he's performing his job, you can't do business with Jesus unless you catch him at word. I want you to look at him tonight as a bloody sin offering hanging on a bloody cross. He came to be a priest. And as a priest to offer a sacrifice and become a substitute for sin. Unless you can get to the place where you find great joy and peace and satisfaction just for holding him. In the eyes of God, he's always hung on that cross. He is a lamb slain before the foundation of the world. He's still hanging there in that sense. I'm looking you in the face. I don't care how many decisions you've made, how many professions of faith you've made, unless you can find your great joy in just thinking about him and contemplating him and resting on him. Him performing his work, brother, as a priest, hanging on that bloody cross. On that bloody cross. Oh, he suffered and bled and died. And Paul will go down to Corinth and say, we determine not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, the one having been crucified. The one who's now alive, but the one who bears in his own body the print of the nail. The one who carries the power of the blood. We still tell men to lay hold on him to life. But that bloody person, Pilate, had him beaten until Isaiah says, his visage was so marred that he didn't look like a human being. Pressed the crown of thorns on his head, gave him a cross to bear up the hill, nailed him through it, gave him gall, vinegar, wormwood to drink, shot dice for his garments, hooted and jeered, made fun of him in his nakedness. Unless a miracle of grace has come where you see not only the brutality of men, but all fullness of the Lord God. If you find great joy in looking at him hanging there, you're not saved. You're just an unsaved church member going your religious road today. Unless you can see him yonder with eyes of faith, performing his work as our great high priest. Oh, what joy. If any man write these things unto you, that you sin not, I can't get in that door that shuts me up. But if any man sin, I can get in there. You know what said we have? We have an advocate. Oh, he's able to save to the uttermost people who are unsaved. Everyone who comes unto God by him. Why? See, and he does whatever limit to make innocence. What a rest and peace and joy and satisfaction to behold him hanging on a cross and now at the right hand of God as my intercessor, as my advocate, praying for me, praying for me. Oh, with my sin and my guilt and my smitten conscience, I can look at that man hanging on a cross. Body torn, heart torn open and exposed to the gaze of those malicious people. And I know that him hanging there saying to a world that when God takes a man in charge, that every eye will be dotted and every tee of the law will be crossed. Man will suffer the awful penalty of the broken law at the hands of a holy God. But in all my guilt and my sin and my smitten conscience, thank God, I look at him hanging on a cross and I see the mercy of God. And I see forgiveness of sin and I see a pardon of it. And I can keep saying, dear God, thy precious blood shall never lose its power till all the ransomed church of God is saved to sin no more. And I can sing, when I should be that worldless cross on which the prince of glory died. Do you find joy in the Lord working at his office, hanging on a cross? The cross is forever in the heart of God. He was as a lamb slain and he's the crucified one now. But I cannot take it out of his job, unless I come to that cross and if he lifts it up, God is there. I cannot whittle him out now, I can't take him off his job, I can't whittle him away. Do we not in baptism say, as we go down in the water, that by faith we've plunged our soul into the blood of the cross? Do we not when we come to the Lord's Supper say that as we eat this wafer and drink this wine, we find it delightful day by day to eat Christ's flesh and drink his blood? Then I want you to see him at work. Where is he now? See him hanging on a cross forever in the heart of God. See him wherefore God hath highly exalted him. He sat down at the right hand of God on the throne forever. Unless you come to the place you find great joy and satisfaction and peace and rest, by looking at him, where is he? On the throne. Unless it brings you great joy that you're absolutely in his hands, he must control you. You're glad. You're glad he's on the throne, not yourself. Amen. You know he's God's prime minister. According to the Bible, God's turned everything over to him, and the Lord Jesus Christ is going to carry out everything, God. And bless God, he's not sitting on that throne by your permission, he's sitting on it by God Almighty's hand. God set him down on that throne. And he's Lord, whether you like it or not, he's Lord. He's the enthroned Lord of the universe, Lord of all mankind. Whether you ever bow to him or not, you'll bow to him when as your judge he makes and sends you to him. And as he sits there on that throne, you cannot riddle him there. I might say I like Jack Kennedy, but I don't like him to be commanding chief of the army. But he is commanding chief of the army. I might say I like Jack Kennedy, but I don't like him to be the executor of the laws of America. He just sent troops down to Birmingham, Alabama, my home state, because he's exercising, he's executing the law of the land. I don't like him to have the execution of the law in his hand, but he has. Whether you like it or not. I say I like Jesus Christ, but I don't like him to be the commander-in-chief of this world and of me and the devil and everybody else. But he is. The devil can't leap an eyelash without the permission of the Lord of glory. He's the commander-in-chief. The Father has turned everything over to him. All authority has been given him. Who gave it to him? The Father. Thou hast given him authority over all flesh. He's Crucified Lord. He's Kennedy's Lord. He's your Lord. And as your Lord, he can save you or he can send you to hell. He bought you with his blood, and he's going to do one of two things. He's going to save you by his grace or damn you to eternal hell. You say, I don't like that! You can't have it! You can't have hell! Except you'll have him as he's working. He's working right now, brother. He's ruling this world from his soul. Now, when he was here, he was a preacher. He was a prophet. And notice carefully two things. When he preached, he preached himself. See, God hadn't any message except Christ. And Christ, when he was preaching, couldn't preach anything except Christ. Nothing else could. And he preached himself as the priest. He said, except you eat this flesh and drink this blood, you have no likeness. And Christ preached the work on the cross. But he didn't preach his Lordship, he demonstrated it. That's a good way to do it. If you're a lawyer and you move to Lynchburg, best thing to do is set up your office, put out a sheet and try a few cases. Demonstrate whether you're actually a lawyer or not. If you're a carpenter, move to town. But if you're a house, somebody will hire him to be a lawyer. Best way to advertise yourself is not to talk, but to act in the right way. And so the Lord didn't preach his Lordship, he demonstrated it. In the 18th chapter of John, I'll not take time to read it, but you read it, that old Pilate comes to Christ. When they brought him before him, he said, are you king? Are you in rebellion against the Roman Empire? Jesus said, my king is not of this world. But Pilate, he came back again and he said, I want you to answer the question, are you a king? And he said, thou say'st it, what of this end? Was I born? This end? Was I born? How did he demonstrate his Lordship? How complete is it? Oh, bless God. The waves, surging waves, fish, fish! And the seers come. He comes to Lazarus' tomb. He's been dead for a day, so that his body's corrupted. He speaks! Everything happens at the word of Jesus Christ. All hell cannot withstand his word. He speaks! I think he uses names, doctors and so forth. And rash disease. If any man's healed of any sickness, unquenched through prayer, doctors, hospitals, it's by the grace of God. He speaks! And men dead in their sins are given life. Nothing can be left undisturbed by the word of when the Lord speaks. He speaks! And demons come out of men and say, we know who thou art, thou holy one of Israel. He holds death in his hands. I'm as certain as I'm alive today, I'm going to live until God takes a hand in it. He's the Lord of death. You say, I believe that, but I don't believe he holds the reins of men's hearts in his hands. How about old Levi? He's sitting at the seat of custom, robbing the people of their money. Still in his sins. And Jesus came and said, follow me. He comes to Peter, James, and John, and he says, come! And they leave their nests and follow him. He was a man, much a man as I am, apart from sin. And as a man, he wept at the grave of Latter-day Saints. And you would as a human weep when you enter a house of faith. He was a man, and as a preacher man, for he was a preacher when he was here. Preached himself. He looked over the holy city of Jerusalem and wept, like Brother Lynch and Brother Ollie. Some part of every day of your life, surely, you draw aside and weep over Lynchburg. Like John Knox would weep and cry, Gibbness, Scotland, all of that. But although he was as much a man as you are, apart from sin, he's more. He is Almighty God. And his word was effectual. He speaks! Levi leaves his custom seat and follows Christ. He speaks! And Zacchaeus slides down out of a sycamore tree and takes Jesus home with him. He speaks! And Saul of Tarsus is arrested from his mad career of killing Christians. He speaks! Now come us home! And if men and women accept him, they must accept him on us home. You'll bow to him. You'll bow to his master, masterhood of your life. You'll bow to his rule. You'll bow to his lordship. But you'll go to hell. Now I trust him, but you'll have to trust him. Not perfectly, but I sure am glad he's on the throne. I look out to the future. All hell busting. Communism growing. Ten times more missionaries in Africa preaching Mohammedanism than the gospel of Christ. Ism growing. All hell popping. Nobody know what they'll bring forth. I'm glad Jesus Christ is sitting on the throne. And I find joy and peace that the future's in his hands. I got scared the other day of the dearest preachers America's ever produced, dear brother Easton of in Covington, Kentucky. God used him. He's away preaching for somebody away from home. Died like that. I thought about dear old Dr. Ironside. Died real young in Australia. I'm away from my home so much and sometimes I get a little scared. I hope the Lord will let me die at home. But praise God, I'm glad the future's in his hands. I get a lot of kick out of that. Do you? You cannot whittle him down. You got to take him on that bloody cross where he poured his soul out. And you got to receive him on the throne. Amen. You're the boss for me. Brother Holly, this isn't something in addition to salvation. This is it. I'm not preaching a deeper life or consecration or rededication. All that stuff's silly. I'm just presenting to you predators. At work, hanging on the cross. At the right hand of God making intercession for his people and ruling this whole world. That's the reason I've been going up and down this country. In my way I've been offering in effect and made a lot of mistakes. But I've been telling men, you need to be born again. You need God to show mercy to you. No man's going to bow to the Lord Jesus Christ without an operation of the Holy Spirit. You can accept your little Jesus and go on to hell without God's Spirit, but you can't bow. No man can call Jesus Lord. I'm quoting Scripture except for the Holy Ghost. My second question very quickly, why is this love, finding my supreme joy and peace and delight in Jesus Christ on the job, hanging on a cross and sitting on God's throne, why is this love essential? Very quickly, it's essential for four reasons. First, it'll be the occupation of heaven, loving the Lord, beholding the Lord. If I ever teach this, we'll do two things in heaven. We'll serve him and we'll look on his face. That's all there is to it down here. And you're going to have to learn how to behold him and get joy. That's all you'll do in heaven, just beholding his face, just looking on his face and serving him. You're going to have to get used to beholding his face and finding joy and pleasure and satisfaction. All right? Down here. Amen? That's right. That's right. Not tomorrow. Today! You don't have it tomorrow. Have you learned to find your chief joy in him? You don't have it tomorrow. This may be your last opportunity. Unless you've learned what I'm talking about, you never have repented. For repentance means turning to from, turning from anything that'll keep you from it to the Lord God. There are just three things that'll keep a man from turning from sin to the Lord, and that's self-righteousness, think you're all right. I'm all right. Amen.