Paul's Gospel — Rolfe Barnard

Our visiting speaker again today is Evangelist Ralph Barnard from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Here now is Brother Barnard for the message today. In the Book of Psalms, at Chapter 9 and Verse 17, we find these striking words.

The Offense of the Gospel

God says, The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. Despite everything we hear today, and we hear it by not hearing it from an actual man, apart from the work of the Holy Spirit.

Many, many years ago, the Apostle Paul wrote, as recorded in the first book of Corinthians, and he wrote like this,. As for myself, having come to you, brethren, I came not having my message demonstrated by transcending rhetorical display or philosophical subtlety, when I announced to you the testimony of God.

For after weighing the issues, I did not decide to know anything among you except Jesus Christ, and this one as one having been crucified. Not bringing the good news within the realm of philosophical discourse, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its true significance and power.

These two statements, one inspired of God, the other the thought of a trophy of the Welsh revival, ought to serve to whet our appetites to seek an answer to the question, where has the offense of the gospel gone?

What kind of gospel is being sponsored by Hollywood and Wall Street, by the noble and by the wise? How is it that all of a sudden the gospel has become so popular and everybody is becoming a Christian without being changed?

What happened to the gospel that was an air of foolishness to the wise and a scandal to the religious? What became of the gospel message that is under the call of both the wisdom and power of God? What kind of gospel is it that fails to transform, change, and keep on changing men until they be conformed to the very image of God's only Son?

Mr. Anderson, whom we quoted, was a product of a message that changed men and the nation of Wales, and the Apostle Paul saw churches born in such wicked cesspools as the city of Corinth. But neither of the two would be able to recognize the popular gospel of today.

The Cross as Stumbling Block and Offense

The New Testament declares that the cross is a stumbling block and an offense to the natural mind. The New Testament will say, but we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a scandal and an offensive stumbling block, and to the Gentiles it is sheer nonsense.

The scriptures will say, behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling block and a rock of offense. The scriptures will say a stone that will cause stumbling and a rock that will give offense. The scriptures will say the offense of the cross.

What has become of it? We need to have our souls burned and our souls afresh. That because the gospel was a stumbling block and an offense to the unregenerated man in olden days, it always created disturbance wherever it was proclaimed.

By way of contrast, how nice and quiet our services are now. How terribly disturbing is the absence of disturbance in our angelistic campaign. We have disturbance on the streets, disturbance in our nation, disturbance in our homes, disturbance in our hearts, disturbance everywhere except in the houses of God.

And it is because of the absence of the preaching of a gospel that is offensive to unregenerated men. Listen, the world is a famous world of figures today in commerce and politics and religion and in the entertainment world.

They accord to the evangelistic efforts that we are having these days and they all do it without having themselves had the new birth experience take place in their own life. These famous personalities seem to adore popular evangelism and at the same time to adore and worship the ungodly things of this present day.

It would seem that there is no scandal, there is no offense, there is no stumbling block in the popular gospel today. And how tragic that is and how unlike the New Testament method and message, we may be dead certain that the gospel message that does not cause offense is not the gospel of God concerning his Son.

And when in these days when we have revivals that do not revive and people have salvation that doesn't save and doesn't change and leaves them still in possession of their hearts' reign, we need to come and give critical look today at the so-called popular gospel and ask again, where has the gospel that was offensive to men gone?

And when that offensive gospel is gone, the gospel of God is gone and the transforming work of God is nowhere apparent. And I'm saying that we've got to be done with preaching a gospel that can be understood apart from the works of the Holy Spirit.

We haven't talked about today, preach the simple gospel that a little child can understand. But the wisest man that ever lived is helpless to understand the truth of the gospel except it be interpreted to him by the Holy Ghost.

The Gospel Cannot Be Understood Apart from the Holy Spirit

For instance, let me illustrate what I'm talking about. What supreme foolishness it is to preach that a baby born yonder in Bethlehem 2 ,000 years ago who lived in Nazareth from which the scriptures say no good thing ever came, this baby who lived all his days in a small country called Palestine.

We're hearing a lot about that country today. This baby who wound up on a tree outside the holy city of Jerusalem, this baby who in his manhood was buried in another man's grave and whose body is still in that grave.

So far as this unsaved world knows what foolishness it is to preach that this one is the eternal exalted Lord of all, for whom all in time or eternity must bow and confess. Now I'm saying to you that this cannot be understood apart from the Holy Ghost.

Nobody but an idiot or one who's been born from above could possibly believe that Jesus is the Christ. To expect that the carnal mind, which the scriptures say is the seat of hostility to God, to expect this carnal mind to accept this kind of preaching is silly.

It cannot be done apart from the work of the Holy Spirit in these services that this dear pastor will be talking to you about. Oh, how we long to have you as a prayer partner and as one who will swell the attendance and swell the witnessing and get hold of the horns of the altar of God to the end that we might have some disturbance that men should not have a gospel they can accept and never know and the salvation they can get and lose it and never miss it and some sort of experience that does not affect the change in them that keeps on changing them until they are literally transformed and translated into the very image of the Son of God.

Oh, how we need disturbance, how we need the unction and anointing of the Holy Ghost to come upon us everywhere as a gospel that offends a religious person and is downright silly to a wise acre but is the wisdom and power of God to a humble babe who can believe.

I would beg you to pray that this may come to pass. I am so tired of our nice little Sunday morning services. Oh, we have everything in the Sunday morning services except the presence of Christ and the Holy Ghost.

We preach the death of Christ but everybody accepts that. But the word of the cross, the message of the cross, that is what is offensive and that is what is left out to be. Why, the death of Christ is accepted by all and it brings offense to nobody, Jew, Gentile or Muslim.

The modernists even preach the death of Christ but they do not preach the message of the cross. All the religious world today believes in the historical death of Christ but not the word of the cross. No wonder the Jews turn thumbs down on the Savior.

You just try to imagine a crucified Messiah if you can. You tell me this can be accepted apart from the Holy Ghost. They could not, neither can anybody today, believe that Jesus is Christ except by the Holy Spirit.

No wonder the world accepts in religious circles and everywhere else, accepts the death of Christ and rejects the Christ who died. Imagine if you can complete surrender for time and eternity to a man who died on a cursed tree.

It just can't be done apart from the Holy Spirit. Oh, if we leave out that part of the message of the cross that offends religious people and makes wise people laugh outright, we leave out the gospel itself.

As this dear pastor shall from day to day over this radio cry to enlist your services and your prayers and your help in these services, we plead that you listen to us in Houston and other places where this broadcast will be heard needs to be disturbed, disturbed by the God of the message of the cross and the power and auction of the Holy Ghost.

And now God bless you as you listen to our announcement. This is a short radio message by Brother Ralph Barnard on the living Lord. Some time ago I got a letter in my home in North Carolina from a dear beloved brother in the Lord.

Salvation and the Reality of the Living Lord

And in that letter these words came or appeared on the letter. And these words are as follows. The business of men knowing a Christ which has relieved them of their sense of guilt but knows nothing about a living Lord is a delusion.

Whatever errors you and I might be guilty of, we must be sound on this. You know, this statement or this quotation from this brother in this letter lingers with me. It haunts me as I go up and down the land seeking to preach the gospel to men.

This letter states both an accurate description of what passes for salvation in our day and it presents a challenge that we dare not ignore. As to the letter, the challenge, one thinks of the errors of one's life and ministry.

You know, with a 20 -20 vision of hindsight, how could we have been so sincere and yet so dumb and wrong in so many instances? Thanks be unto God for his mercy. Rejoice again that God can and God does draw many a straight line with a crooked stick.

We must all be reminded that after we've done the best we can, we're all unprofitable servants. God is ever the God of a new start. As to the form of the statement of this brother, this passes for what salvation is called today, I wonder deeply if that description doesn't pretty well pinpoint the status quo of present-day Christianity.

Somebody, the old colored brother I think, said that the expression status quo is Latin for the mess we're in. And God help us, we're in a mess now when a polluted, perverted, mixed up, stuff that's called Christianity has taken the place of that which Christ died for and is now yonder at the right hand of God interceding for, namely eternal life.

Let me read this statement again to you over this radio this morning. This business of knowing a Christ which has relieved men of their sense of guilt, but leaves men knowing nothing of a living Lord, oh surely that is a delusion.

Surely such a Christ is the creation of a perverted and a watered-down gospel which is not the gospel of God. Surely such a gospel and such a Christ has no word and no healing for a world being rent asunder from all directions by reprobate men and reprobate forces.

Surely we're at the very heart here of the reason what passes for Christianity in the 20th century brand is gasping for breath and anybody can easily hear the death rattle of the patient. From a Roman Catholic layman writing in the Saturday Evening Post of recent date come these words, I quote, There is always the danger, after all, that the concept of God may wither away altogether in this country, not under attack, but from sheer disuse.

Modern American disbelief has crept like a white fog throughout churches. In fact, churchgoing is quite irrelevant to it. Such disbelief is not incompatible with a mild assent to religious truths or even a mild religious revile.

This man is saying that our nice little patronizing of God, he's saying that religion is a handy convenience on a par with the Chamber of Commerce or the Bridge Club. He's saying that our tidy little beliefs and our nicely packaged fire-escape-from-hell salvation, that we preach this stuff with a nation headed for the dunghill, he's saying that it will never do.

And to my way of thinking, it all leads back to a Christ who is not real in men's experience. It leads back to a Christ of a creed, but not to a Christ in you, the hope of glory. And there is no such Christ in the Bible or in history or in men's hearts.

The Christ of the Bible is Lord of all. And a salvation that does not so enthrone him is not God's so great salvation. In other words, a Christ who men believe in and their sense of guilt is thereby relieved, but leaves men knowing nothing experimentally of a living Lord is not the Christ of the Bible.

The Christ of the Bible must reign. R-E-I-G-N. All hell can't stop it. He must reign in human hearts as he must reign the world wide around some of these days. Now, my friends, I believe that the issue of all issues in religion and in lost American Christian entity is this.

I believe that churches must be evangelized before they can speak to the Antichrist spirit of this hour. Surely a church or an individual not bearing about the marks of the Lordship of Christ can only mark time as we seem to be doing now as the battle is being won on every side by the spirit of Antichrist.

One is reminded of the message of King Henry sent to Crelon. Hang yourself, brave Crelon. We fought at Arcus and you were not here. Henry Drummond of old said that most of the difficulties of trying to live the Christian life arises from attempting to half live it.

His statement prompts the assertion that living a Christian life is not simply difficult. It is impossible. The New Testament emphasis is Christ living in you. Not you live in a Christian life but Christ manifesting his life in and through you.

William Law, that saint of old said a Christ not in you is a Christ not yours. And he said right. A Christ not in you is a Christ not yours. A man or a woman must know experimentally the living Lord. Anything short of this experimental knowledge of a living Lord who died on a cross but he didn't stay on the cross and God raised him and put him on a throne and gave him the very reins of men's heart.

That is salvation. And anything that's short of this fails to be New Testament salvation and there's none of the kind that's any good. It is surely true that knowing a Christ which relieves men of their sense of guilt apart from knowing the living Lord is a delusion.

It is further true that whatever errors we may be guilty of we must not bear here. It is time to demand not only that men come to Christ with an open hip to hand to receive his mercies but it is time that men must be bidden and demanded to come to Christ don't bend at knee with surrendered lives.

In a recent issue of the popular Christian magazine Christianity Today seven questions about evangelism are asked by a Maryland pastor. I want to call attention to two or three of his insulated statements.

First, he says evangelicals rightly insist that before a man can follow the ethics of Christ that is the moral teachings of Christ before a man can do that he must accept, in the My Bible way he must accept Christ as his gracious Lord.

It would seem then that proper evangelistic methods would be one of our greatest concerns. But is this so? Again he says can we assume that we have adopted evangelistic methods that are adequate for our age?

Still one more time he asks the question that invades all who will listen whether or not the converted man will have a new life, a new purpose a new set of standards and a new philosophy of life. This man says the Bible says yes.

My observation to you this morning is that the Bible tells the truth. It does say yes. Maybe it's time for us to make sure that our converts are really converted before we take them into our membership before we hold them up to the unconverted as examples of what Christ does for a man.

Maybe it's time we stress emphatically that the Christian life is more than an intellectual acceptance of Christ as Savior. Christianity we must insist is more than a creed or belief in a set of doctrines.

Christianity we need to remind men everywhere is a way of life. It involves men more publicly in more than public professing faith in being publicly baptized in accepting a box of church envelopes. It involves a life of self-discipline.

It involves a complete commitment to the will of God. This business of men knowing the Christ who has relieved them of their sense of guilt but leaves them knowing nothing about a living Lord is a delusion.

And if you have this sort of an experience, you'll split hell wide open. Do you know experimentally the power of a living Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit in your daily walk is my question as I ask you to give faithful attention to this dear man as he tries to acquaint you with what is going on in this congregation and enlist your prayers and your support for Jesus' sake and soul's sake.

Amen. This is the third in the series of messages by Brother Barner on the reality of the Lordship of Christ. This is a short 12-minute message. I speak to you today on the subject the reality of Christ's Lordship.

Jesus Is Lord: A Historical Act, Not an Idea

The basic confession of faith or the Christian faith is very simple. Jesus is Lord. His Lordship is real. His Lordship lies in the realm of fact and not of theory. It is a matter of history, not of idea.

For one to be Lord does not mean for him to discuss or confer about the ideas of Lordship and to persuade people in their minds that his rule is a good thing. It is rather to meet men with terms to be accepted which, if not accepted, must be established by action.

Lordship is an achievement, not an idea. Lordship is a reality, not a thought. Here, then, is much misunderstanding by friend and enemy. Christianity is not a way of looking at life, of philosophy. Christianity is not a way of living and ethic.

Christianity is not a set of ideas about God or theology. Christianity involves all these, but it is basically other than these. Christianity is an event. It is a deed, an accomplishment, a victory. Speaking of his own work, our Lord said, No one can enter a strongman's house and plunder his goods unless he first bind the strongman.

Then, indeed, he may plunder his house. Therefore, in order to establish his Lordship, it was necessary that the ruler of this world be cast out. And that was not done by conference. It was done by costly action on the cross.

The gospel, therefore, is the good news of that costly action. Now, this is not an idea. This actually happened. The early Christians believed that God had acted in the behalf of men. Here is the very heart of the Christian faith.

Paul insists that this was not his slant only. He said that he received it from the other apostles, 1 Corinthians 15, verses 1 and 3. He said that he held this in common with them all. And what was it that they had in common?

Why, my friends, it was that the gospel was a proclamation of a series of events wrought by God in Christ in behalf of men. This one, Jesus, brought the new age to men by dying for sins, by rising on the third day, and by ascending to the right hand of God, where he now reigns in exultation, as the scriptures say, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come.

He will also come again, thank God, to bring, as the scriptures say, to light the things that are now hidden in darkness, and to disclose the purposes of the heart. Something wonderful has taken place.

It is neither theology, philosophy, or ethics. It is a simple story of facts. Christ, because these facts are true, his Lordship is R-E-A-L real. Now, if the Lordship of Christ is exclusive in that it supplants all other Lordships, it is also inclusive in that it covers the whole of life.

Christ is Lord of every aspect of human existence. To the Christian, religion is not a part of life. The whole life is transformed by Christ. For instance, the Bible will tell us that the mind is to be renewed by Christ.

Romans, chapter 12, verse 2. The Bible will say that the will is to be subdued and relieved of its folly by, as the scriptures say, the understanding of what the will of the Lord is. Ephesians, chapter 5, verse 17.

The Bible will tell us that the feelings are to be cleansed. In the language of the scripture, we quote, I beseech you to abstain from the passions of the flesh that wage war against the soul, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer by human passions, but by the will of God.

1 Peter, chapter 2, verse 11, and 1 Peter, chapter 4, verse 2. Every element of human behavior is to be brought under the white light of God's will and God's purpose. The scriptures will tell us in Colossians, chapter 3, verse 17, and whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ’s Present Lordship and Future Victory

Now, praise God, the Lordship of Christ shall one day be manifested in total victory at his reappearing, not by persuasion, but by power. And then men who in this lifetime have refused so to do must bow their knees and with their lips confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of the Father.

Not to their salvation, but to the glory of the Father. The New Testament church and the early Christians, and we desperately need to take them seriously these days, lived in a period of tension. Much as they believed in the glory of what Christ had done, they lived in hope of something he was yet to do.

That which he had begun, they believed he would complete. Faith in what he had already accomplished in his first appearing, therefore, quickened hope at what he would do at his final appearing. Christ to them was not only the fulfillment of promise, he also was the promise of fulfillment.

His Lordship, in which the church believed, was at that time hidden. It was seen only by the eyes of faith. But since his Lordship was real, it must someday be openly manifested for all men to see. And that's what our hope is now.

What is true in the heavenly places where Christ is seated at the right hand of God must be true in the whole creative universe, which up till now is in rebellion against him, his rule, and his right, and his claim.

But at no point is the New Testament more strange to our ears than in this respect. It tells us, does the New Testament, that the kingdom of God has come upon us, and yet the New Testament counsels us to pray, thy kingdom come.

The Bible of the New Testament tells us that God has said to the Lord Jesus, sit at my right hand. Till I make thy enemies a footstool for thy feet. And here the seeming contradiction is clear. To sit at God's right hand meant that Jesus was already Lord.

And yet, he is to sit there to await the time when through the subduing of his enemies, he will be manifested as Lord. It's almost in the Bible like saying, be Lord until you become Lord. But out of this seeming contradiction, the deathless hope of the early Christians was born.

Tension between what had already happened and what was yet to happen marked their faith. Their gospel involved what God had done, what he is now doing, and what he would yet do. Living in the present, their faith turned to the past, to that glorious scene on which Galatias healed.

And their hope turned to the future. They believed that God will complete what he has begun. They believed that there will be an end when, according to the Scriptures, he, the Lord Jesus, delivers the kingdom of God, the Father, after destroying every rule and every authority and every power.

1 Corinthians 15, verse 24. Why isn't that glorious? The Lord Jesus cannot lose. He is Lord. He is Lord of those who put the martyrs to death. He is Lord of Adolf Hitler, the man who burned the bodies of six million Jews and used their ashes to make soap to wash the bodies of the German soldiers.

We live now in a time when men deny the reality of Christ's Lordship. We live now in a time when men pray of having him as a spire escape from hell, but refuse to gladly bow to his rule and reign and crown rights in their lives.

But we live in the expectancy of that time when his Lordship, which is now hidden only to the eye of faith, shall be made manifest and men who today will not bow will be forced to. Men who will not now confess his Lordship will be forced to so that we know that whether men bow now or then, God shall be glorified in his Son who leaves nothing undisturbed that he touches.

Praise God for such a Savior. Praise God for such a Lord. Come to him. Come to him. Not a myth, but a reality. Come to him where he is now at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Gladly bow to him as absolute totalitarian dictator and Lord of life and limb and do it now for salvation's sake.

And we welcome you again to another Free Grace Meditations program. Our guest speaker today is Evangelist Ralph Barnard from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Here now is Brother Barnard for the message today.

Christ’s Exclusive and Inclusive Lordship

The Lordship of Jesus Christ is a reality. It is not a matter of speculation. It is a matter of fact. The most sublime statement in the entire word of God is the statement that the Apostle Peter made on the day of Pentecost when he said in Acts 2 .36,.

Therefore, let all the house of Israel know as a matter of fact that this same Jesus whom ye have crucified, God hath made both Lord and Messiah. The Lordship of Jesus Christ is a fact because it is an act of the Triune God.

Men do not make Christ Lord. God has made him Lord of all. If this be true, I want to bring today two or three suggestions concerning what this means to every individual listening now to the sound of my voice.

In the first place, if it be true and it is that Jesus is God's Lord, then he brooks no rivals. He brooks and he can brook no rivals. He is absolutely unique. He is the only Lord and God of all mankind.

The very name Lord implies that he is ruler. That he is one who has authority. Therefore, all others are his subjects, you and me included. Now, this thought in the New Testament goes much beyond the mere meaning of the title itself.

This meaning is drawn from the Old Testament. The very heart of the Old Testament was this, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. There is but one God and that God is absolute ruler of the universe.

Men and nations are ruled by him and subject to his authority. A friend of mine was telling me the other day about a man of my acquaintance who lives in Louisville, Kentucky. This man happens to be a preacher.

And this friend was saying, the only thing wrong with Mr. So-and-so is that he thinks that Jesus is king of the world. But, bless God, he is king of Louisville and of any other city in all the nations of the earth.

And since there is but one Lord, he is Lord of all. In the New Testament, calling upon Jesus as Lord was and is the same thing as calling upon God as Lord. Now, if this be true, and it is true, there are two implications that follow.

And the first implication of the reality and exclusiveness and the inclusiveness of Christ's Lordship in which he brooks no rivals, in which he is absolutely unique. The first implication, and this is serious for everyone who hears me now, of this truth is that the Lord Jesus Christ demands total, absolute surrender.

He demands from men not that admiration. Many think well of Jesus. He doesn't demand sympathy. He doesn't demand simply our interest. He doesn't demand our approval. He demands total surrender. Ladies and gentlemen, to be a Christian is first of all to bow the knee to Jesus, to crown him Lord of all.

Friend he is, as well as counselor, as well as example and guide. But before all these, he is absolute Lord. For the Lord God, our God, the Almighty reigns is the theme of the word of God. And it was the theme song of the early church.

And it must become the theme song of everyone who names the name of Christ today. Someone has pointed out that in this sense, Christianity is not a democracy, but a monarchy. It is not a constitutional monarchy wherein subject and ruler agree on the limits of rule.

It's an absolute monarchy. Men are subject to him not by a compact they've made with him, but because they belong to him. His Lordship, therefore, and thank God, is not arbitrary, for it is exercised as an expression of his gracious nature.

But that gracious nature is not of our choice. And his kindness is not the result of an agreement which we forestore him. It is the free exercise of his own nature. We receive, but we do not contribute.

He reigns over men absolutely by virtue of his Lordship. It, his Lordship, is our source of blessing, that his is an offer to heal, that his Lordship is gracious. God's people confront the world in not primarily with an offer to heal its ills or to solve its problems.

Our first appeal is to rebels who've taken up arms against their Creator. And it is an appeal which is nothing less than the demand for our surrender. The Gospel faces the world with terms and does not simply suffuse it with a glow.

The message is still, Jesus is Lord. The terms bow down to him and that write gladly. The Lord Jesus Christ will not settle for anything short of the total absolute surrender not of our time, of our money, but of ourselves to him as God's Lord for time and for eternity.

Still another implication of Christ's absolute Lordship is that there is no other way of salvation for man than to surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ. My, how we need this today when everybody's trying to find something right and good in every kind of religion under the sun and mix it up and stir well and take the good and pour out the evil and say that there's so much that can be contributed by this and that to the Word of God.

Not so, my friends. In this sense, Christianity is absolutely intolerable, intolerably intolerant. Both the Old and the New Testaments are clear here. For the scriptures will say, For I am God, and there is no other, Isaiah will say.

Well, what about it? What then? The conclusion is inevitable. The Word of God will say, Turn to me, that's to God, and beseech. How many? All the ends of the earth, from the north and south and east and west, black, white, yellow, every kind, good, bad, evil, rich and poor, turn to me and beseech all the ends of the earth.

If there is no God but one, then He's the God of all men, and there can be salvation in no other. The New Testament says, And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name unto heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.

This is true, and here is offense, and here is scandal, especially today. For instance, how can the narrow stream of holy history recorded in just one book, the Bible, about an obscure carpenter living in a tiny country, how can that have meaning for all men of all ages?

How can the salvation of all men in all ages rest on the death and resurrection and exaltation of this obscure one in a remote corner of the earth two thousand years ago? This is the offense of the Christian faith.

But offensive or not, this is the Christian faith, and there is no other. Christ does not just add to the world's knowledge. Christ is not the crown of a process. Christ is not the capstone to be placed on the pillar of other faith.

Christ does not supplement other religions. He supplants them. Thus our message is absolutely intolerable and adamant. This world belongs to Jesus Christ. All other offers and efforts at salvation are vain and twice vain.

All who are saved are saved. My friends, despite criticisms, and they're growing mighty fast now, this dogmatic message, this absolute call to surrender is not to be shrunk from if God has done what the Bible says he has in Christ, and thank God he has.

It's not the mark of intolerance to tell men of his great act. If one should be in a burning building with many doors, but only one of which moved open, should one not let desperate command point to that door alone?

And to keep silent in days such as these is to shame Christ and bring reproach on him. God grant his spirit of boldness upon us to cry aloud to all. He is the door. He is the only door. He is the way.

He is the only way. He is the Lord. For your soul's salvation's sake is my prayer, and I beg you to listen to our closing words of announcement. You've been listening to Evangelist Ralph Barnard from Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

How much we need this message today. In the days of anarchy and lawlessness, we need to have someone stand up and declare the Lordship and the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. I trust that you'll pray for these meetings and tell others to tune in and listen to the broadcast tomorrow.