The Text
The Counsel That Started It All
I believe that Christ died for me because it is incredible. I believe that he rose from the dead because it is impossible. Is there any hope for us today to recapture such daring faith? If we can't, we are in for some bad times.
You should never forget Dr. Hamm. After Mr. Graham came on the scene, that mighty man of God had almost been put on a shelf. In the early days of Graham's ministry he made a journey to see the old gentleman under whose preaching he had been brought to Christ — and he asked him for one word of counsel. And Brother Hamm said: Billy, never lose your sweetheart love for Jesus Christ.
I think that may be what is the matter with us.
Dr. Conner's Classroom
I had the privilege of sitting under the teaching of Dr. W.T. Conner — a non-emotional man, pragmatic, brilliant, devoted to the gospel. He would come into the classroom at eight in the morning, call the roll, have somebody lead in prayer — and then time after time, through the three years I sat under his teaching, he would throw the lesson away. He never brought any book to the class except the Hebrew and Greek Bible. And he would say:
He would read from Matthew 13 about the fellow who found the treasure hid in the field and went and bought the whole field just to have the treasure — and about the merchant who discovered a pearl of great price and went and sold all he had and bought it. Then Dr. Conner, non-emotional as he was, would begin to cry. He would say:
Oh, if we could believe that Christ died for sin. If we could believe that he rose from the dead — that he is the living Lord and the Lord of life.
The Danger of Doctrinitis
I think I have earned the right to speak about the terrible danger of coming to think that truth, unbaptised in tears and the Holy Ghost, will get the job done. It just will not do it.
I have had contacts with people who have changed their doctrine to where they say they believe in sovereign grace. I want to exhort you from the heart cry of the Apostle Paul — and call my own heart and yours back to a sweetheart love for Jesus Christ, until we just cannot keep from telling what a wonderful Saviour is Jesus my Lord.
Don't think you have got any truth right — don't try to cram it down anybody else — unless you can pray as Paul did:
Paul spent his life agonised over his Jewish people — so greatly blessed of God, who had so rejected the Messiah. And he said it bothered him so much that if it were possible, he could wish himself accursed from Christ for their sake. For God's sake, let us get an aching, breaking heart. Let us be done with doctrinitis. Let us be done with professionalism. Let us just come back and drink at the water trough — days that sow in tears.
Oh, for a borrowed passion. The only way to have what we used to call a passion for men is to borrow that passion from the one who, though he were rich, became poor for our sake. You will never work it up or manufacture it in yourself. You will have to borrow it from Jesus Christ.
The Church in Boston
I went to a church in Boston, Massachusetts. The most courteous, clean, orthodox, fundamental, separated bunch I had ever got into. After the third night, I said to the pastor:
Brother Pastor, I believe I'll preach tomorrow night, and then I believe I'll close my part of the meeting. We don't have kindred spirits. You haven't done the thing I've asked you to do — I haven't seen a tear since I have been here, nobody has said they are burdened for a soul, everything I ask you to do, you say you are not accustomed to doing it yet.
The pastor and deacons came to see me that evening. They were good men. And they said: Brother Barnard, tell us again what God wants and by His grace we will do it. I told them the simple story — that the service begins after the meeting ends, that the place to reach men is out yonder and not in a nice comfortable church building, and that the whole Bible is saturated with the word go — not send somebody else, but God's people themselves to go, with the precious truth, saturated in tears, with the anointing of the Spirit and the promise of his accompaniment.
That bunch of Yankees went crazy. The next day they almost stormed the city of Boston. They went into saloons, they went into every place they could get in the door. And that night, that house was packed out. Folks who had never even been invited to a church service were so startled when they were, they came to see what on earth was going on.
The Sixteen-Year-Old Girl
In that service, as soon as we stood and started to sing, a little sixteen-year-old girl came running down. She was a Roman Catholic girl and she had never been in a gospel service in her life. She found herself down on that carpet, and it frightened everyone. My wife came and dealt with her — and I think God came to that little girl that night.
She was not there Friday night, nor Saturday night. On Sunday morning she came back and sat way at the back. My wife went and sat down beside her. I preached that morning, and after about twenty minutes the girl began to weep. Then she quit weeping and began to cry. Then she quit crying and began to sob — and you could almost hear her body tearing apart across that audience.
She stood and gave her testimony. Her face had great scars on it. Her back was beaten pulp. She told how on Thursday night she had run all the way home and gone into the front room where her father, her Italian mother, her brother and two sisters were gathered. She told them that she had gone down to the Baptist church and that Jesus Christ had come into her heart.
Her father stood up. He went and got his black snake whip and made that sixteen-year-old girl stand, and whipped her until she fell unconscious on the floor. When she came to, her brother was kicking her. Then her two sisters stood on each side of her and spat in her face. Her mother came and cursed her. And her father commanded her to stand, then locked her in her room, keeping the key on the outside, and said to her: If you ever make such a blasphemous statement again, I will kill you.
She stayed in that room all Thursday night and all Friday, the wounds festering, burning with fever, given only a piece of bread and a glass of water. Saturday morning she crouched like an animal waiting at the door, and when her father turned the knob she pulled it open and he fell — and she ran out. She spent all of Saturday in an empty boxcar at the railroad yard, hungry, thirsty, feverish. On Sunday morning, not knowing where to turn, she said: I know what I will do — I will go where the Jesus people are and they will help me.
And she stood there in that Boston church and held up her arms and broke the heart of that aristocratic room full of icicles of orthodoxy. And she said:
She forgot her own aches and pains. All she could think of was that her dear ones were going to hell.
The Baptism
I closed the meeting that Sunday night. I was supposed to open in New York City the next evening, but the pastor called ahead and said the preacher could not get there until Tuesday — there was important business. Monday night, the pastor said: I will entertain a motion to ask Brother Barnard to baptise. I went down into the baptismal pool and I lifted up my hand and took the hand of that little sixteen-year-old girl. Then I took the hand of her mother. And her father. And her two sisters. And her brother. And I brought them all down into the pool together and had the joy of putting them all in the water in the likeness of the death and resurrection of my Lord.
I saw what men who really care can do.
Preach It with Tears
Many years ago a preacher got in his car and drove 150 miles to my house. He had never seen me and I had never seen him. I was preaching over the radio in Fort Worth, Texas. He knocked on my door, told me his name, came in, sat down, and said: I believe you have learned the gospel. Then he stood up, turned, and walked out, got in his car and drove home. But before he left he said six words:
Not with what comes out of the eyes only — but with what comes out of the heart.
Ladies and gentlemen, let us not go on without this. We are not selling insurance. We are not trying to prove a point. We are ambassadors of Jesus Christ, pleading with men and women to be reconciled to God. This passion you will never manufacture. You will have to borrow it from King Jesus. We have incredible news — without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh. There is a Man in glory faithfully representing us. Let us stand for that truth — and let us stand for it with a sweetheart love for Jesus Christ.