How Can a Sinner Come to Christ?

Tomorrow night, I feel definitely that I wish to speak to you on the subject. Tomorrow night the subject will be the Lost Doctrine of Our Generation. The Lost Doctrine of Our Generation.

A number have expressed the, I hope, Christian desire, know it was, that the messages we've been bringing in the morning hour could be heard by the Sunday morning people. Many people worked different shifts, and the schools, of course, have gripped our children now with a terrible grip. I want to go to the football game tonight, but the pastor wouldn't let me.

We've come now where things must be interpreted not as to whether they're bad, but whether they are to be placed ahead of the service of the Lord. I do not know what we'll be bringing to you on the Lord's Day, but we are very confident we have a message that we would covet a good hearing for. Tomorrow night, the Lost Doctrine of the Bible, of this day.

Send the Bible, but we've lost it in your day and mine. We'd like to preach on it tomorrow. Tonight I'm going to attempt to ask and answer the most challenging and important question that any man could ever ask or speak to answer.

I do this tonight for some who are here, who give evidence of having a deep sense of your need of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have no gospel for anybody except people who recognize their sinfulness and their deep need of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not asked or commanded by my Lord to invite anybody to eat except hungry people, or to invite anybody to drink except thirsty people, or invite anybody to come for rest except weary people.

I know of no one who ever guides for people who are not needy, but I do delight that we have a gospel for people in time of need, people who are sinful and sin sick. They are invited to come to the Lord Jesus Christ. Only those are.

Now, how may a weary, hungry, thirsty sinner, how can he so come so the Lord Jesus Christ has to be received and to be saved? I declare to you that the gospel of this hour makes Jesus Christ standing at the door of men's hearts, hoping against hope, that someday they'll invite him in. And there's no gospel in that. And anybody that believes will believe it to the damnation of his soul.

And I recognize we're in a war. We're in a war for the souls of men, the truth, and a man who seeks to plow, as we do, has much grief of heart, suffering of spirit. It's not nice to be unpopular.

We are all too weak for that. It breaks my heart that the devil wields so much power and plows the issues, and it's so difficult to get a guarantee of what we honestly believe. But if you're dealt with as many people who've been butchered up as I do, you would desperately want to tell me how can a sinner so come to Christ has to be received and received from him forgiveness of sin.

I could not. I could not. Whatever I had to pay, I could not give a typical invitation.

I'm never able to give any except two. One, if the Lord has done his work, come and share that wondrous news with God's people. And the other is, if you feel your need, come to see.

I couldn't give an invitation, walk this aisle, and take Jesus. Because I'm desperately afraid you would be thinking that there was some virtue in walking an aisle. Nothing about walking an aisle that'll get you Jesus.

We're not talking about a physical coming. We're talking about a spiritual coming to an invisible Christ, who must, you first must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder, them that diligently seek him. But we're talking about a spiritual approach to a living person whom you can only see with eyes of faith, and not with these physical eyes.

And I'm desperately afraid to invite a man to walk an aisle and take his stand for Jesus, for I believe the folks who do that will go to hell trusting that aisle instead of trusting the Lord Jesus Christ. How can a sinner come in a spiritual way to one who came to him he cannot see, but who is alive? How can he come into the presence of the only faith, and be dealt with, and be saved by this one whom we see not with these eyes, but with the eyes anointed with the powers of God? That's an important question. It is not true, my friends, that if you'll come to Jesus, he'll save you.

Many times people came to Jesus in the New Testament when the Lord was there on the earth, and he didn't save them. Nicodemus came to him by night to have a talk, and he didn't save him. The rich young ruler ran eagerly to the Lord Jesus Christ, and he came addressing him, Master, good Master.

But he went away without salvation. The Greeks came, the wise men representing wise Greek philosophers, and said we would see Jesus, but they never saw him. Although he talked to them, but they went away and never saw him with eyes of salvation.

No, the scriptures teach that there is a proper way, and guess what? And it's a spiritual way that a sinner can come and do business with, and be done business with, to coin that expression with an invisible and yet a living Christ. We need, first of all, my friends, to remember this, that it's the living Christ who saves. He saves us in virtue of his death.

But if all that Jesus had ever done was hang on a cross and die, nobody could be saved. For he died a death that was no good if he stayed dead. Salvation is the gift of a living God.

And because Jesus died, and now he's alive, he's able to justify sin. We need thus to remember that there is no salvation in belief about the death of Christ. You can believe everything the scripture teaches about the death of Christ and go to hell for your trouble.

Nor is there any salvation in belief about a living Christ. The difference for most folks of heaven and hell is that the many know about Christ and the few know him. The many know about his death and resurrection and the few experience of both.

We need to remember that salvation for sinners is in the hands of a living God. And it takes a living God. And Jesus is God.

He's not part of God. He is God. And only a living Christ can save sinners.

How can a sinner come? We know it's not done by a physical walking of an eye. We know it's not done by a bowing of the knee. We know it's not done by anything to mouth, a lip service.

How can a sinner come to Christ? Savingly. Prejudice is no good here. Our opinions are no good here.

We're strictly limited to the teaching of the words of the living God. And if it'll not cause you to want to argue with me, I'll repeat a very solemn statement. In all of the entire Bible, now you listen to me, in all of the entire Bible there are just two places where sinful men are told exactly how a sinner can approach the Savior in such a way as to be and invoke the same thing you say.

Now that's pretty serious. I'm telling you right now, that's pretty serious. And we can't afford, because nearly everybody else does, to ignore the truth of it.

A brother preacher preached on me in this town. It broke my heart. And publicly called me a liar from the pulpit.

Because I preached that you cannot have Jesus as Savior, apart from having him as your Lord. He was on good ground, because this generation knows nothing of the Lordship. All it's ever heard is about a doormat by the name of Jesus that'll keep you out of hell, and leave you captured in the prison of your sins.

Opinions are no good. What somebody else believes is no good here. Whether we're prepared to believe it or not, the doorway to the kingdom of God is the Lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The only way on earth, the only way on earth a man can get into the saving presence of Jesus Christ is to come through the door of owning him as Lord. You can believe about him. You can let somebody try to cram the scriptures down you.

You can answer a syllogism or a catechism in the affirmative. You can answer such questions as, do you believe you're a sinner? Yes. Do you believe Christ died for sinners? Yes.

Do you believe he's able to save? Yes. Do you believe he died for you? Yes. Do you want to be saved? Yes.

Will you receive him right now? No. Because deep down in the consciousness of men and women, they know better than the stuff we preach to them. They know better than to think that you can come into the presence of the living Christ in any way except to approach him as he is.

And he's presented in the word of God as the Lord, as the Lord. This Bible knows nothing about the turn, Jesus said. This Bible doesn't know anything about the turn, Jesus said.

This Bible places salvation in the hand of that one who's been given another name. Not the name of Jesus, but at the name of Jesus. Every name he's been given because of his death on the cross and his resurrection and his exaltation to the right hand of God the Father.

He's been given a name. That name is Lord. He's Lord! He's the Lord! It is not true that Jesus saved him.

It is true that the Lord, whose name in the days of his humiliation was Jesus, but the Bible teaches the Lord. The Lord! Why call you me, Lord? Lord! Do not the things which I say unto you, that if thou shalt confess with thine eyes Jesus as Lord and believe in thine heart that God has raised him, the Lord! Thou shalt receive. Believe of the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt receive, was the word to a trembling.

But even that, they didn't tell him what we tell him. We just said, won't you take Jesus? They said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. There ain't anybody got power to save sinners except the Lord.

Ain't anybody got a right to save sinners except the Lord! That if thou shalt confess! The King James Version hasn't got that. The King James Version says that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus. That don't mean anything.

That just means walk down the aisle and say, I'll take Jesus as my Savior. But that ain't what God says. In the Greek originals here, and this is true, everybody that reads the Bible knows this, there is the way to come into the presence of the Lord.

Now wait just a minute. It doesn't say he'll save you on the spot. Now I know in advance it says you walk down this aisle, close your eyes, and repeat the prayer, God be merciful to me a sinner, and I guarantee you that the Lord will save you on the spot.

He's a blasphemer. He's lying to people. There isn't anything in the Bible that'll tell you that if you'll do so and so God will save you on the spot.

But the Bible does say that if you'll bow to the rule and the reign and the lordship of Jesus Christ, he'll save you. And if you don't, you can make all the possessions you want to. And you just haven't come into the presence of the only one that can.

I tell you salvation's in the hands of the Lord. He's just the only voice that can speak the last that's come forth. The Lord, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, Jesus, that one who in the days of his humiliation, born of a virgin, despised by everybody who was in him, crucified outside the holy city while the people who murdered him were led to his mercy, were inside the temple going through the ritual of religion.

That's Jesus, who was taken outside and buried in another man's tomb and swaddled in another man's clothing. And as far as this world knows, his body's still rest out yonder on outside of Jerusalem. There's a little dust there if we could find it.

As far as this world knows. Now, if you'll stand up on your hind legs, says Paul, and confess that he ain't dead no more, that you believe in your heart, you're prepared to die for it, that he's alive. And that come hell or high water, even if Caesar does hear about it, or the Sanhedrin hears about it, he's my Lord.

He's my Lord. So we'll do that of the shake. In scriptural salvation, and there isn't any other, here's exactly what God Almighty requires of anybody to come into the saving presence of the only Lord and Savior.

Here's what he requires. In scriptural salvation, man, sinful man, must not only inwardly believe, but must at the disregard of all consequences, openly express the Lordship of Jesus in his life. That's a million miles from the preaching of this popular day.

But it's the truth of God, so help me. It's not salvation now, and surrender later. The Bible knows nothing about taking the Lord Jesus home in Solomon Land.

It's all of him, or none of him. And the Bible knows nothing about cutting Jesus into pieces and presenting one of his offices that doesn't offend you, and calling it salvation while you deny him his rightful place as the Supreme King and Lord of your life. I speak the truth to you, my friends, when I tell you everybody wants a Savior.

But not many want a Lord. But the only one who can save has been declared to be Lord by Almighty God. And if salvation's in a person, you cannot get into the saving presence of that person by coming to him and say that, say you're a Lord, but fully on that you can't be my Lord.

I'm willing to keep out a hill, and I'd be glad if you fix me up so I won't go to hell when I die, but I'm not willing to acknowledge you to be what God says you are, Lord. Lord. You don't get saved that way, my friend.

You don't get saved that way. God's Word demands not salvation now, and surrender later, but to go to death. And this world's just as hostile to the Lordship of Christ and to any of his people now as it was in Paul's day.

And if any should desire to be saved, the preacher must tell him what is involved in such a confession. Why, ladies and gentlemen, I propose to show you tonight that in New Testament days, nobody ever got saved without thoroughly understanding that in the acts of being saved, they committed themselves to death. And every last one of them expected to die, physically, because he'd accepted Jesus as Lord.

There wasn't any of this kind of preaching. You don't have to give up your this, and you don't have to give up your this, and you don't have to be baptized, and you don't have to join the Church, and all that stuff that we've said on until we're sick. No, no, no New Testament preacher ever tried to let anybody get the slightest impression that he could be a friend of Christ and a friend of the world at the same time.

It is clearly understood in the New Testament that you couldn't have both, that it wasn't Caesar and Christ, it was Caesar our Christ. Oh, hear me, that preacher, a Sunday school teacher, a mother, a father, who dares to give you man's same friend, the impression that you can have fellowship. The preacher's not your friend, he's the enemy of your soul.

Let me tell you how far we're out from revival in our churches. I'll tell you how far. We're just this far.

God help you never go back to entertainment or whittling the gospel or trying to make the cross attractive. Well, there ain't no revival there. And if there is any revival and any blessing from Almighty God in this terrible day in which we live, it'll have to come in proportion as we seek not to rob Jesus of his crown, but as we climb up on the heels of preaching and witnessing to Jesus as the price of redemption on the part of the sinner.

It's Jesus! How to get into the presence of the only one who can give you salvation. That's how to get into the presence of the only one who can speak, go thy way, thy faith is made thee whole. Now, if you want to run to another preacher, you can find plenty of them that can assure you that you're all right.

But the only one that can tell you the truth about it is the living Lord. He's the only one that's got the power or the right to tell a poor old sinner you're whole, you're saved, you're saved. But you say, Brother Barnett, that involves a miracle? Yes.

And the only way you can get into the atmosphere of the miraculous is to come owning him as what he is. Thou art my Lord, thou art my Lord. You can believe everything in the Bible and go to hell.

It all comes to this point, when the tips of the voices die, will you submit to him in your heart and voice that submission with your mouth and say to this world, He's my Lord. When Jesus preached, when the disciples preached, when Paul uttered the words of my text, the whole world was under the control of one man, Caesar, and his title was C-U-R-I-O-S, C-U-R-I-O-S, Lord. I was in Chicago some years ago in a meeting speaking for the Christian businessmen, daytimes over their radio testimony, and every day they'd take us to lunch, take me and some of the men, preachers would gather in, and there was present one day a man who'd just returned from Japan, a missionary, and he was giving missionaries up Salt Creek with a hoop and a holler.

He was really talking about it. And he told about what took place when Japan and the United States got in war. The decree went out, and all of the missionaries of the Lord in Japan were given one of two alternatives.

They could bow down at the shrine of Hiyorita, the emperor whom the Japs worshiped as their Lord. Or if they wouldn't, they'd be put in concentration camps. And he told me that many of the missionaries crossed the fingers and bowed down and gave lip worship at the shrine of the emperor and called him Lord.

And he's telling me what he thought about people who do that. And that's what I thought, and I said that I wasn't capable of forcing an opinion on it. It was a good wave from Chicago to Japan, and I don't know what I'd do if I had to face it.

Well, Eddie, right now, brother, I know what men had to do if they got saved in Paul's days. They had to face it, and they had to make their choice. And every last heathen Gentile that Paul gave that proposition to understood that if Caesar found it out, he was a dead dog.

And brother, a lot of them found it out by experience. Well, that gang of people who owned the Lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ, some of them, God allowed them to beset the lie. And many of them, God allowed them to furnish the fuel to light the streets of Rome.

Ladies and gentlemen, in New Testament days, a man had to have a conviction and the realization of a need to walk anybody's aisles or let it get out on him at all. But he is on the Lord's side, because in those days it wasn't popular to be a Christian. But it meant something.

It meant something. And we are foolish if we do not bow our necks in whatever the cost. So help me, God, I'm more determined to do it than ever.

We're foolish if you think we conquer by robbing Jesus of his Lordship. Brother, the early church demanded submission to him as Lord, and they took the world for bloodstained Jesus. And now we've robbed him of his Lordship and made him the minister of sin instead of the minister of holiness.

And have dared to claim to be his trophies and prove it by our unlikeness to him. And we're losing out every day. And our churches are becoming more like clubs than like houses of prayer.

And for as I'm concerned, I'll bleed at night and sometime walk the floor and cry to God. But oh my soul, I'll lift up my voice if I get another opportunity and say God Almighty demanded in Paul's day, and God Almighty demands in our day. Whatever it costs you that you own Jesus as your Lord, then he saves you.

I do not know what it means to trust my salvation to anybody except the Lord Jesus. A Jew, a Jew wouldn't confess Jesus as Lord unless they believed him. Because if the Sanhedrin heard about it, they'd turn him out.

And a Jew would not call Jesus Lord. That's recognizing his name. Been taught to have no other God except in the past.

It costs the man of the Lordship of Christ. Look at the future. In the 14th chapter of Revelation, how will it be tomorrow? Well, tomorrow here's what it'll cost the man to be saved.

In the 13th chapter of Revelation, I still believe that this is prophecy. I cannot explain much about it, but I'm of the opinion, and you wouldn't fall out with me. This is just my opinion.

I do not know that it's so. Just like a little baby trying to learn, willing to be taught. But I think that most of the book of Revelation is what's yet to come.

I still believe that. And I think here in the 13th chapter, we've got a picture of this whole world, when the religion of this hour has come to its head, and all the world worships the devil. That's where we're headed.

For my friends, God's heaven is now man's hell. And man's hell is now God's heaven. That's how far we've gone from the Bible.

And we're not very far from out-and-out devil worship. That's where this world's headed. He's going to be represented by his beasts and prophets.

And brother, it ain't going to get popular. Go around talking about the Lord. And it tells us in that language that I do not understand about this feminine man taking out his mark in the forehead or in the hand.

They're subject to death. Maybe he'll starve them out, the king. And yet in the 14th chapter, in that sort of an atmosphere, I know the Lord's going to change.

I just know he'll fix it so a man can be a secret Christian. I just know in this atmosphere, when unless you worship the beast and bury his friends so people can see it, that you're subject to death. I just know that if there's any way for men to deceive, God will be merciful and fix it so a fellow can take Jesus.

Let's see if I'm right about it. This makes your hair stand up on you. We have the preaching of the gospel.

In verse 6, that's another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the air under them that dwell on the earth. And every nation and kindred and tongue and people, he's going to come and preach the gospel. Here it is saying with a loud voice, fear God and give glory to him.

That's all the good news there is in the gospel. But wait a minute! If I fear God, Antichrist will kill me. But fear him anyhow.

If I give God the glory, Antichrist will find it out and he'll kill me. I know. But the only good news God's got is fear God.

Don't fear Antichrist. Of course he can kill you. He can kill you.

But that ain't the worst thing to fear. What is the worst thing to fear? Well, the worst thing is to fear what God can do. Well, let's see what God will do.

If in fear of Antichrist, you do not reverence God. If in worship in Antichrist, you do not worship God. Let's see what God will do.

Antichrist will kill you if you worship God. But what will God do if you bow to Antichrist? Well, here it is. In verse 9, the third angel followed them saying with a loud voice, and his image, and received his mark in his forehead, or in his head, if any match to the way of salvation.

Let's see what God will do. The next verse. The fellow that bows to the popular and the easy and the evident and the terror in his day.

What will God do? The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation, and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. That's all. But brother, I brought it to you tonight to show you that God Almighty never has and God Almighty never will.

We come to terms of the gospel. It's always been at whatever level. If you want to save your soul, stand up on your hind legs and voice the devout belief of your heart and say, I say this is the day when the burning Christians, well here's a Christian, Jesus is my Lord.

Jesus is my Lord. Oh, when we're in the majestic light of the scriptures whipped past the limb that they hear, it makes one sick almost to vomit to think of what we call the gospel in our day that has allowed people to think themselves to be Christians when they've never even said goodbye to their saints, never even cleaned up the filth that had it. Oh my God.

Listen to me. When, when was it ever possible to come to God without departing? When was it ever possible to have fellowship with God without breaking every tie? Never has been. Brother Olien had walked with God, but nor did he have to walk alone.

And if it means that you have to walk alone and you're the only one in action, if you have any hope of fellowship with God in this life or the life to come, it means just exactly that price for Jesus to be your Lord. If there ever will be a time, would be a time when we could say, well now, surely God wouldn't expect a man to be willing to lose his life in order to be saved. That's exactly what it demands.

Ladies and gentlemen, every child of God is a walking dead man. If this world ever gets to where it's got power and God does not restrain it, they'll put a $25 bounty on God's people. I wish unto God we'd throw our sons of schools away and start doing something else.

I wish we'd start teaching something. I wish we would. My heart bleeds for your young people there at the football game or the picnic when meetings going on in the house of God.

That's all. They've got it all wrong, you mothers and fathers and sons of school teachers and preachers of Sodom and Gomorrah. They don't know what it is.

They think they can have Jesus on Sunday and everything else during the week. They know nothing about the Lord. I say that with a break, it's so.

I wish you weren't as loyal to your denomination as you are to the hearts. I wish you was more interested in getting your children saved than you are being popular and following the path. I wish we were willing to break with everything if it meant the salvation of our children.

I tell you now, we've got to quit making Christianity something we do in our spare time. It's over, it's nothing, and it comes back. I'm sure it don't come at all.

And things are all right in that way, but being loyal to him is all wrong. Listen to me. God's not going to make it easier.

My brother, by the way you preach it, can't anybody be saved unless God works a miracle. You just go ahead and make a profession, go to hell. The way you preach, that means, that just means an operation.

Why, a fellow wouldn't be the same person. That's exactly what the Bible teaches, your new creation. Oh my God, it's a sharp break.

It's a clean break. It's a revolutionary break. A break with everything.

But give me Jesus. That's what the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. What's it cost today? What's it cost today? How can I come into the saving presence of him who alone can speak peace to my soul and break the shackles of sin and set me free? There's no confession got power to do that.

If Jesus is dead, we just will close up and quit lying to folks. If there is one who has power over sin, we'll tell the people about it. If all we're doing is preaching theory, we ought to be honest about it.

If all we're doing is chaining opinions, we ought to be doing honest about it. But my friends, if we're preaching a living Christ, a living Christ, if that's true, then we must demand that now men shall treat him as Lord, for his very aliveness is the declaration that he's Lord. Listen to me.

In the present, a man must own him as Lord, absolute surrender to him as Lord. Poor little old girl down at Bob Jones University. I was holding a meeting and grieving.

The Bible broke out. Hundreds of students were under conviction. It was forbidden later to come to the meeting.

Jack Gladwell was commanded to deny the Lord's statement. In spite of all of that atmosphere, some of them kept coming. One young woman who was trained to be a missionary, every night she'd come to the inquirer.

This generation will either take his hand once, if that don't work, they'll just go on to hell if there's no use. I know some people say, well, I made one profession. I ain't saved.

I ain't gonna make no more. Go on to hell. The old time as you used to see it, the same gang streaming down the front every night for weeks at a time.

They may not have been so smart and method, but brother, they was heading the right direction. As far as I'm concerned, I want to get saved. If I ain't now, I got a right spot of pride, but I ain't got pride enough to go to hell for it.

That little girl, every night she'd come just to bawl and we'd deal. She couldn't get any peace and she'd go back out and somebody'd tell her she's just disturbed and stuff like that there. And I'd help her a little bit.

She'd come back the next night and get in no terrible shape. And she'd go away that night and decide that she is all right, that she'd just been disturbed. And the next night she's back about to die.

Pitiful night after night. Yes, she'd come. We stood helplessly about trying to help, not being able to invade the human heart.

No, not knowing, not knowing what goes on inside. There's no use for me to go. Said there's not a better use for the way I'm done.

Said there's been trying to tell me I just needed to get a little closer to the Lord. This ain't be the real, it's the big. And with all of your beliefs and all of your dreaded tales and all of your desires, you're not willing to look God in the face and say, fool y'all.

You're like an old man that'll never drop inside of a church except there's something morbid about it. You're not willing to go to hell, but you're not yet willing to go to heaven. You're not willing to be lost, but you're not yet willing to be saved.

You must be absolute with me. It'd be different from anybody else that ever lived, but the issue'd be the same. With me, I knew if I ever surrendered to King Jesus, I'd have to preach.

And I tried everything to try. I finally made a bright discovery. I don't know how the world got along until old smart Alec Ross came along.

Nobody'd ever had any sense until I came along. You know what I found out? I found out there wasn't any God. And I took that medicine three times after meals before retiring at night.

But somehow or other it didn't do me much good. I'd cry on my bed at night. I did it for four solid years and begged to God whom I found out didn't exist not to kill me that night.

If the daylight found me alive, I'd make my surrender to him. The sun'd come up next morning, get my courage back. At night, you know, I was afraid.

My alibi, somehow or other, when you turned the lights out, it didn't do me much good. But when the sun was shining, and I know the hour, when salvation came to me, it is when I crossed my repentance and laid it at his feet. For my Lord does not plant the white flag of peace while he's still at war.

He's got to come, as old Sam Jones says, throw your shotgun down to Jesus and say, Lord, now I'm in your army. No, attack! Anything less than that. Maybe the Lord never had to deal with another person on that very thing.

But the thing that keeps you outside the kingdom of God right now, you don't want to go to hell. But I could stand here till daybreak and ask you questions and you'd say, I believe everything I ask. But you're a human being.

And the trouble between you and God is, there's war going on. And God demands that you throw up the white flag and sue for his terms of peace. But bless God.

Oh, what that old song of my heart. It was there by Satan. I received my sight and the burden.

I preached to you the gospel tonight. Now we're going to give you an opportunity. You've done that.

Then and not till then, I got a blessed scripture to tell you, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord. And that don't mean simply a prayer. That means a life long recognition of him as Lord.

Calling upon him. Drawing on him. Depending on him.

The Lord. The salvation in that name. Praise God.