Paul's Gospel, Messages 4 & 5

Very good morning to you, my friends of the radio audience. I count it a great privilege to come again this morning and thank God that he's enabled us these days to come together each Lord's Day on these different stations around the central truth of the Bible, what God has done in the matter of redeeming men and women and what the response of men must be if they shall enter into that which Christ has accomplished for men in life, this life and the life to come. We're ready this morning for the fourth in the series of messages on the general subject of salvation.

We need constantly in these days to remember that salvation is not simply the escape from some dire peril or predicament. Salvation must be rightly related to Almighty God and the one's self and the one's neighbor. And according to the Lord Jesus Christ, everybody except us is our neighbor in the Bible sense.

Salvation is God Almighty in Christ restoring men to right relationship to him. It's not simply a fire escape from hell. It's not simply a way to release some of our burdens, but it is to rightly relate us to our Creator and God our Redeemer.

You know, whatever we may think about men, there's one thing that's certain about all men, they were made for fellowship with God. And deep down in all of the ruined condition of man, there's something left in a man that fixes it so he judges himself and he's not satisfied with his condition. Augustine put it, that thou hast made us for thyself and we'll never find rest until we rest in thee.

And that is dead certainly correct. And so these Sunday mornings we've been talking about salvation, which is the wonderful, wonderful thing that God Almighty has done to rightly relate men who've gone astray and rebelled against him and sinned against him, to rightly relate men to him and to one another and to their own selves. And we've been talking about how Paul preached this wonderful word of salvation to everybody he could.

And we believe it would pay us to be diligent in these desperate days, to be dead certain that we preach a whole gospel for men as they are in relationship to Almighty God. And for the last two Lord's days, I think we've been camping on this fact, that there's no need to talk to men about their need to be saved, as the Bible uses that word, rightly related to God and to one another and to their own selves, unless men see their need of that wonderful salvation. And that's the issue of the hour now, for we live in a day when men are not conscious that they are estranged from Almighty God.

Men live as if there were no God. Miss Georgia Hartness, that provocative writer of Methodism, has something like this to say along that line. She said, it's amazing how many people there are in America who will tell you they believe in God, but live as if there were no God.

And that's the heartache, and that's the crisis of the hour in which we live. Millions of church people who'll tell you they believe in God, but live seven days a week as if there were no God, and as if they were here forever and were not destined to die and go yonder into the hands of a holy God. That's the issue of this hour.

Men are not conscious that they need to be restored to right relationship to God. And the reason they are not conscious has been our subject the last couple of days, and that is that men are sinners. And the more a man sins, the less conscious he is that he does sin.

Now, that seems to be a paradox, but it's so. The old hardened sinner, as we talk about him, is not under conviction. He thinks he's getting along pretty well.

You'll see tender children crying and sobbing their hearts out about their sinful condition a whole lot more than you will to see the old fellow down on skid row who's lost his family and lost his character and lost his health and lost his job and lost everything that seems to make life worth living. And yet the old boy's getting along all right, thank you, and has no consciousness of his awful estrangement and alienation from a holy and yet a loving God. Yes, I am sin, my friends, is here, and it is a part of the judgment of Almighty God that even in this life men pay for their sins.

It is still true, whether this world believes it or not, that the way of the transgressor is hard, and that the wages of sin is death. Sin is here, sin's in the air, sin's all about us, sin's in our hearts, sin's perverted our will, sin has darkened our minds, sin has dug graves, sin has provoked war, sin, s-i-n, sin is h-e-r-e, here, sin, here, and men need to be saved, to be rescued, to be recovered, to be delivered from sin's bondage and its clutches. Men are living in the state of sin, and so before a remedy will be appreciated, a de-felt sense of a man's own condition must be felt.

I received mail this week along that line, one young fellow said, I haven't appreciated your program much until now I see I'm a lost sinner in need of salvation, and I want to write and thank you for your faithfulness in the message. Oh, my friends, our gospel is not appreciated now, except by men and women who've been brought to the place of despair, despair of ever, ever saving themselves. Oh, I would that that would be all over this country, in our homes and in our church members and all down the streets and everywhere, wouldn't it be wonderful if men today, if in God's good providence and grace, the power of the gospel one more be felt, and we could preach it in the power and demonstration of the Holy Ghost with signs following, if you please, that men might know that they're responsible to a holy God, and that they stand in desperate need of being brought back into the right relationship to Him that the Bible calls salvation.

And so we've been talking about the presence of sin, about the fact that sin's everywhere, about the fact that sin is in man. There's something radically wrong with men, and you do not need just to be shed or rid of some of your evil deeds, but you need to be made a brand new creature in the sight of Almighty God. Last Lord's Day we dwelt along that line, and we talked about sin, S-I-N, sin, its origin, its universality, its nature, its grip on men, and we learned that men desperately need to be redeemed from the clutches of sin.

And today we want to remember that sin has a tool. Sin is personified in the word of God like a great monster, it's personified. And the Bible tells us that sin has a tool, a if you please, by which it's able to accomplish its work a whole lot better.

And that tool of sin, according to the Bible, is the F-L-E-S-H, flesh of mankind. Now, in Paul's preaching about flesh, when he talks about flesh, it's not the same thing as the body. I wish you'd get that.

There's nothing wrong with your body. Christians are told that their bodies are temples, or sanctuaries, or dwelling places, or habitations of the Holy Spirit. And that translation in the word of God into King James, our vile bodies, is a little wrong.

It should be the body of our humiliation. And we look to a glorious body like the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, but there's nothing vile about the human body. And so sin doesn't use the human body as such, but sin as its tool.

But sin does use that which the Bible calls flesh, and the flesh is basically the material side of man's nature. It's not necessarily evil, but since S-I-N, sin, personified, using the flesh as its base of operation, and that's where he works, has corrupted that base of operation, thus, therefore, the flesh, the material side of man, is no longer moral and neutral, according to Paul. It has become the involuntary accomplish of sin, and sin is the real criminal.

And as the material which gives sin its chance to operate, the flesh then comes to signify not merely man in his natural weakness, but man as a fallen man, his human nature as being apostate, departed from, separated from, alienated from, estranged from his Creator and his Redeemer. And thus, in the word of God, to trust in the flesh, or to walk by the flesh, is not so much to give way to the lower passions, although that is included, as it is to live godlessly in sinful self-reliance. In other words, to live by the flesh, or to walk in the flesh, means to turn away from God as your Creator and Redeemer, and to find your own security in the creation.

Something you can see which is transcendent and perishable is going to be burned up. My friends, is that in the picture of the world today? Men living as if the only thing that is worth anything in this life and the life to come, if there is a life to come, is money, or a fine house, or a social position, or something else which is their God. Men are living according to the dictates of the flesh, which is being used as a tool of Satan now, to live as if there were no God.

That's the way men live today. The awful categories of sin, Cora talked about being sins of the flesh, are not so much the base operations of our sinful nature as they are pride, and things like that, sins of the mind, and sins of the heart. And thus we know that the word flesh does not simply mean bodies in the New Testament.

The flesh, therefore, is a picture of the way men live today, and the Apostle Paul says that to live by the Spirit, to live by the Spirit is the only remedy for the awful pain of death which comes to men who live according to the flesh. And thus the flesh stands for the complete inadequacy of the creature before his Creator, and the only cure for it, according to Romans 8 and 2, is the Spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. I wish I could come and sit down and talk face to face with every radio listener listening to me now, and say to you, my friend, you better wake up to the fact you're living in a world that is acting like we did not have any life to come.

We're acting as if there were no God. We're acting as if there was no responsibility due Him. We're acting as if we were just animals and we'd claw each other and eat, drink, and be merry, or jump off in a corner and feel sorry for ourselves.

I tell you, my friends, man is more than a body. Man is more than a fallen human being. Man is a creature created in the image of God, and he desperately needs to be restored to favor with Almighty God.

And then we learn not only that sin is here and that it uses our sinful nature, our material bodies, if you please, as the tool by which it operates, but we learn that the third member of the awful trio that holds man, sin, flesh, and third is law, the law of God. The power of sin, the scriptures say, is the law. Sin is in one aspect a violation of God's holy law.

Not only the law of Moses and the Ten Commandments, but the universal and eternal law of Almighty God expressed in those commandments. And in this sense, the law of God, Paul tells us, has been written in the hearts and consciences of all men. Then the scripture tells us that through the holy law of God comes a knowledge of sin.

The scriptures tell us that God's law shows up sin as sin and shows a sinner that his life is wrong with God. It also actually provokes to sin. When the law says, Thou shalt not, the old sinful man said, I will too.

And therefore the law also produces wrath. It produces God's wrath. For the scriptures tell us the wages of sin is death, and sin, if persisted in, proves fatal.

And that is a part of Almighty God's judgment. And so the Apostle Paul speaks of the curse of the law. Now, my friends, elsewhere in the scriptures, the Apostle Paul calls the law holy and good, and says it was meant to give life.

Now, how can the same man, the Apostle Paul, describe the law in one place as the holy demand of God, and in another as a slavery driving a man to despair? Well, the explanation is this, that it's not the law, which so far as it contains the moral demands of God, is still valid. But it is the spirit of legalism which is the curse. Legalism, my friends, is the attempt to live or to find salvation under the law.

And we do make that attempt by seeking to obey its statutes, and so obtaining credit in the ledgers of heaven. Now, a man ought to seek to keep God's law, but if he seeks to keep God's law so as to obtain credit in the ledgers of heaven, that is legalism. And that is believing that you can do and be good in your own strength.

The legal man, therefore, is the religiously self-made man. But the Apostle Paul, if he could preach to this generation, could say and say it by experience, Mr. legal, self-righteous, self-made man, trying to lay up credit for yourself in the ledgers of heaven. It just can't be done.

Paul say, I know, but I tried. And I expect I tried a whole lot harder than anybody living in the sound of the voice of Ralph Barnett now. And Paul says it can't be done.

It can't be done. The law is powerless to save, Paul will tell us. It's powerless because it's weak through the flesh, through our sinful nature.

And Paul will therefore tell us that a man needs to look at himself in the mirror of God Almighty's holy law, for that law was given to prepare. The law is a method of preparation, and its aim is to lead men to that place of despair, of having kept God's righteous commands, to where they'll plead guilty to being sinners in the sight of God, and cry out to God for mercy. And when a man is brought to that place, then thank God he's at the place where the grace of God operates, for God always meets men at the point of their need.

And when a man really comes to where he's seen, needs to be restored by God, to be saved by grace. Bless God, he's already one step into the kingdom of God. To the apostle Paul, therefore, speaking to men who are clutched in the bondage of sin, which uses the flesh as its tool, the base of operation, and where men are hemmed in by the law of God that provokes them to sin.

And she, thank God, the gospel meets a man at the point of But the point of his need to the apostle Paul, for sinners in that threefold clutch, he tells us that for our sin we are accountable to almighty God. Oh, we can't stress that too much. Somebody says, well, brother Barnabas, how is your responsibility to him? Paul said, for our sin, because of our sin, we are accountable to God.

Every man must give an account. And yet, Paul will add that by the works of God shall no flesh be justified. That includes you, and that includes me.

Paul will say, we cannot put ourselves right with almighty God. We just can't do it. We can't put ourselves right.

Change their own leopard spots. He cannot die. But he tells us this is a dark picture, but God help you, it's true.

Oh, if you believed that, brother, you'd start screaming for mercy. If you believed that you'd go out and find something, you'd sail away. You've either got to be brought to the, I don't know how to preach the grace of God unless against the dark back.

Oh, my soul, what a wonderful privilege it is when you find someone except men bound in sin and knowing it, bound in the clutch, refusing to alibi and just pleading guilty and throwing up your hands and saying, I'm a lost, hell-deserving sinner. Bless God, I got good news for a person like that. And we're going to be occupied in the days to come with this wonderful against the background and against the background of the fact that in his day, men knew they were mortally ill.

I'll follow in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I cried over this microphone that in your goodness, in your providence, in your grace, in your mercy, once more, oh, so-called Christian America, where everybody's Christian, therefore, and they shall be brought to the place where the grace of God will bring them back into fellowship with God in Christ. This is our prayer in his blessed name.

Amen. I come again this morning to continue the messages that we've been occupied with some Lord's days on the general subject of the gospel of God's salvation as preached and taught by the greatest representative and interpreter of Christ this world has ever known, by that man whom God in his providence, through the power of the Holy Spirit, inspired to write the great interpretations of the life and death and resurrection and ascension and present reign and coming glory of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We're ready this morning for the fifth in this series of messages, and I am hopeful that you are listening each Lord's day, for we just begin each day where we left off the Lord's day before.

I want this morning to come and just spend a moment of review. The Apostle Paul is crystal clear in one thing, and that is that men who are not guilty of sin toward Almighty God neither need salvation nor recognize their need. And that is peculiarly true of the day in which I am preaching and the day in which you are living.

The consciousness of sin has well and rightly parted the lives of men and women in America. Wherever we go, inside our organized churches or out, every godly preacher, and there are many of them, thank God, bewails the lack of godliness and Christ-likeness on the part of the vast majority of the people who have their names written on the church rolls of our land. It is certainly true that this is the day when numerically Christianity is growing as it never grew in any day since the time of the apostles, but at the same time we have more people claiming to be Christians, but we have lost the salt.

The salt has lost its savor, and pound for pound Christians weigh very little today. And I am persuaded that one reason for that is, I do not know all of the reasons, but one reason is that we skip over very lightly this awful fact of S-I-N, sin. I do know, and you bear witness to this fact, that only people who are conscious of great sin are very anxious to experience great salvation.

And the Apostle Paul preached salvation to men who needed to be saved, and in his day, because of the conditions, multitudes of people believed that they needed to be rescued and delivered and justified and redeemed and reconciled and restored in the right relationship to Almighty God. And so the Apostle Paul, before he talks about the experience of past salvation, for I remind you that we are approaching the preaching of Paul's gospel of salvation by saying that Paul preached salvation in its past aspect, salvation in its present aspect, and salvation in its future hope. And we have been trying to lay a foundation from the Apostle Paul's preaching for the experience of crisis we know as salvation in its past aspect.

And we have been saying that the Apostle Paul uses three great words. These words come from different directions, but they speak of the same thing, to describe how God saves men in the matter of having been saved, salvation in its past aspect. He uses the word redemption, he uses the word justification, he uses the word reconciliation.

But we have been showing you how the best we could that Paul preached these great truths against the background of men who were conscious of their sin. And we have tried to say that sin is here, that man is a sinner, that he is a rebellious sinner, that he is positive in his rebellion against God, that there's something radically wrong with us, that it's not just that we do some things that we could stop if we were a mind to, but we are in this condition that we know what's right, but we are unable and unwilling, and we're unable because we are unwilling to obey. The matter of believing the gospel is difficult, not because God has made it difficult, but because believing the gospel means to obey God, and to set his glory at the center of our ambition.

And it's mighty hard to obey. That's what makes it so difficult for men and women to believe, because the essence of believing is surrender and obedience. And in this sense, man is a sinner.

He knows what's right, that does not live a human being on top side of God's earth that does not have some conception of right and wrong. And that is a standard that he didn't set for the worst sinner as times when he mourns over his very sinfulness. There's a paradox about being a sinner.

Men willingly sin, and yet they also judge themselves in the still small hours of the night for their awful sin. And because that's so, there is hope that sinners may be saved. Paul has said that man is a sinner.

He said that men need salvation from sin, and from the flesh that is the tool of sin, and from the law that provokes us to sin and provokes us to wrath. And then Paul has said that man is accountable unto God. You know, there's a paradox about the grace of God that nobody can understand, and that is that a Christian, listen to me now, a Christian gives all the glory to God.

He'll say, I am what I am. I'm not yet perfect, but I'm on the way. I am what I am by the grace of God.

I have nothing wherewith to glory. It's of God. Salvation's of the Lord.

He did it. He sought me first. And at the same time, when the Christian is the most conscious of what he is, what he is by the grace of God, he's also the most conscious of his absolute freedom and his absolute responsibility to God.

There is a paradox about sin, that while men sin inevitably, men sin because they can't help it, at the same time men are responsible for that sin. Now, my friend, you can't explain that. That's just so.

I'm not in the explanation business. I'm not trying to square things. I'm saying that the Bible is not a logical book, and that the great truths are paradoxical.

You can't understand them in your head. The grace of God, the grace of God, oh, it's incomprehensible. And if any preacher could tell you exactly what it is, it wouldn't be grace any longer.

And I say to you that the fact that a man sins inevitably just because he is a sinner, and in that sense he cannot help the fact that he sins, the Bible turns right around and says that although he sins inevitably, he sins responsibly, and that God holds him to account for his sin. Now, I can't explain that, but you need to deny it. And it's high time the pulpits of this land quit trying to square one set of teaching over against another, and we just well face the fact that God's ways are above our ways, and his ways pass finding out, and they're above our knowledge, but we must be true to men.

I'm speaking to people this morning that sin, and in that sense you can't help your sin. That's the awful condition you're in, and if it's left up to you, you're just going to go to hell. But at the same time, my sinner friend, you're responsible for that sin that you sin, although you can't help it.

You say, Brother Barnard, I don't understand that, neither do I, but that shows you something of the awful predicament that men and women are in. Explain it. I couldn't do it in a thousand years, but it is so.

It is so. Oh, the apostle Paul wasn't trying to prove something, he was just telling the truth, and men need to bow to truth, whether they understand it or not. Oh, if it is just true that sinful men did some little bad things, and sometimes some pretty bad things, and that if we'd educate them a little better, and love them a little more, and improve their environment a little more, why, they'd slough off all those evil habits, and they'd be alright.

If that is so, the picture of this whole world would be pretty rosy, but that isn't so. I'm telling you, men and women sin because they are sinners. They sin inevitably.

They're unable to do anything else, and yet, for their sin, they are responsible to Almighty God. Oh, if that's so, if one half of that is so, if you bow to that, if you'd accept that, if you quit running to some preacher who denies the first part, just preaches the second, and denies the sovereignty of God, and puts it all on you, you'd come to stop short in your tracks, and you'd say, oh my soul, I'm in the pit, I can't get out, but the trouble is that I dug the pit, and I've fallen into the pit that I dug myself. Now, brother, a man's in that shape's in a bad shape, and that's exactly the condition that men and women to whom I'm preaching right now are in.

You dug the pit yourself, and you can't get out, and that's the reason you need the long arm of God in Christ, to reach down in the pit of your own digging, and with his everlasting arms underneath, to lift you up to higher ground, and restore you to fellowship with Almighty God. I wish I knew how to tell the truth as Paul preached it, about the actual condition of men and women. I'm telling you, sin is not just some little acts and deeds that you do.

Sin is a very part and substance of your nature. My sinner friend, you do not need some of your acts and habits destroyed. You need your nature changed, and that's the heart of the condition of sinful men.

The Apostle Paul is clear on that. Maybe what is clear to him you will not bow to, but Paul preached that men are accountable for the very sin they cannot help but commit, and that's a desperate condition. My friends, if that's so, a sinner is helpless.

That's so, a sinner is helpless. And if a sinner is helpless, and yet a sinner is responsible, oh, how sinful people need the salvation that God was in Christ, making possible for sinful men everywhere. I wonder if any of that is getting over to you.

Today we preach a little message that a fellow ought to quit drinking, he ought to quit this, and he ought to quit that, and there's not anything much wrong with men except a few little bad things they do. I have people come to me, dear women, and say, Brother Vine, I want you to pray for my husband, he's such a good man, he's just got one bad habit. But God says he's not just a man with one bad habit, he's a man with a heart that's hateful to God and hostile to God, and that he sins because he's a sinner, and that he needs to be made a new creation in the sight of Almighty God.

It'll not do to take off his old dirty clothes and clean them up a little bit, and shine his shoes, and brush his teeth, and scrub behind his ears. That the old boy doesn't need to be cleaned up, he needs to be changed, and the salvation of God that's in Christ Jesus talks about a new birth, and a new change, and a new start, that's what salvation is. The purpose of God in Jesus Christ is to bring the past on this whole earth, a new species of people, a brand new race, a new creation.

God's not pouring new truths into old limeskins. This is the gospel. Do you know, my friends, here's where we need to count, because people today book this.

They say, Brother Barnum, man can't be held responsible for what he can't help doing, but that's exactly the shape you're in. Now, I can't explain that. A man doesn't sin and thus become a sinner.

A man sins because he is a sinner, and therefore what he needs is not simply to have some of his actions improved, he needs to be changed from a rebellious sinner to a willing, loving, bond-slave of Jesus Christ. Whether I've got this over to you or not, whether the Holy Spirit has helped in any way or not, I do not know. I know I'm preaching against the grain of this hour, but it's so.

I can't explain it, but it's so. There you sit as you ride along your car this morning, or as you're around washing the dishes, you're getting ready for the labors and duties and privileges of the day, and you are a helpless, responsible sinner. Did you get that? You are responsible to God.

God's going to hold you accountable, he does now, for your sinful way. And you need to be made a new creature in God Almighty's sight. Helpless sinners, rebellious sinners that inevitably sin and yet are held accountable and responsible by a holy God.

The Apostle Paul says, they need salvation, they need salvation. You know, the picture wouldn't be so awful dark if I could stop now, but I have one other thing that I must talk about if I'll be true to the gospel of salvation as Paul preached it. Not only is sin here, not only are men clutched in the awful trio of sin as personified using the flesh as a tool and spurred on by the flesh-killing claims and demands of God's holy law, not only is man in that awful shape a helpless but responsible, but I won't call your attention this morning to something else that looms large in the theology and the gospel that Paul preached.

And that is that man, not only in his awful condition, but he lived in, that's true, but man lives in a world, now you get this, where Satan, where the devil, where the power of hell is active and working night and day. Somebody says it wasn't for the devil the world would be converted for some. I wouldn't be surprised if that's so.

Oh, we are living in a world that the tracks of the archenemy of Almighty God and the enemy of eternal souls, the tracks of that enemy the devil can be found everywhere. And the Apostle Paul, I guess we call him a back number now, but he joined the Lord Jesus Christ in talking about demons and the worship of devils and struggling against principalities and powers in high places, spiritual powers. And he talks about the devil being the prince of the powers of the air, and he talks about the devil being the God of this present economy, this present order of things, this present world.

And here you are, sinner, you sin because you're a sinner. The law spurs you on because of your weak sinful nature. The flesh that's your sinful nature gives sin the working ground, the workshop where he can display his power.

And you're living in a world where your next door neighbor's a sinner, and sin's in the atmosphere, and it's easy to sin and difficult to do right. And also, walking the streets and in the air above you and in the very atmosphere are millions of demons, the very legions of hell him that did self and the servants of the devil. And these demons are everywhere, and their tracks are everywhere, and Satan clutching men in his awful embrace, blinds people to the glory of the gospel, encourages men and women to go on in their rebellion, stifles the desires and cripples the will and deadens the consciences of men and women.

Brother, that's not an accident. You're living in a world where the devil's working, the devil's working. I'm telling you, Paul, he may be a back number now, but he not only believed in sin being everywhere as a very fact, but he said the devil's here, the devil as a power is here.

The little apostle Paul says the devil's got a kingdom, it's the kingdom of darkness, and demons and evil spirits are everywhere. And he warns of the power of Satan. He said that men and the world in which they live were mightily affected by and influenced by S-A-T-A-N, Satan.

All through his writings, the apostle Paul talks freely of the satanic agency in human affairs. He talks about, for instance, in Ephesians, he says, our wrestling, and he mentions it is not merely with human adversaries, but with principalities and powers. He says we're in a war.

He writes as if God Almighty in Christ is battling with the very powers of hell itself. He calls these demons the servants of the devil. Somebody said that the devil never did a better stroke than when he persuaded men to disbelieve in him.

And I know that in these later years, people sort of made fun of the devil, and they've acted like he wasn't around, but he is around. Have you ever seen demons in action? Have you ever had them spit in your face? Have you ever heard them scream and curse? I have. I've been in services where the power of God was so powerful that the demons in demon-possessed people took possession and took charge.

I'm telling you, demons are everywhere. Our Lord Jesus Christ, I guess he is a back number because he talked about demons, and he cast demons out of people when he was here. Our godly missionaries in the very heart of heathenism talk about the powers of hell and the powers of satan and the demons that are everywhere.

I tell you, my friends, that anybody that can deny the presence and the power and the awful influence of the powers of hell to thee just must have shut himself up in a room somewhere, gone to a monastery, stuck his head in the sand like an ostrich. I tell you, satan is raging everywhere. Maybe he knows his time is short, but there never was an hour when he was fighting any worse than he is now.

You try to preach, brother, and you can just see his cloven ears and his horns and feel his evil wrath upon you. And he's trying to discourage God's people and overcome God's people and dishearten God's people and get them off the fire and fire. I'm telling you, satan, you live in a world that's influenced greatly by the power of hell.

Our missionaries talk about them. You and I live in a day of Nazi Germany, six million Jews killed and their bodies made into soap. You and I live in a day of the atomic bomb falling on Japan.

You and I live in a day of the awful curse of communism. You and I have read the papers about the rape of Hungary, and you talk to a policeman now, and talk about our cities, even Winston-Salem, and the policeman will tell you about the powers of hell. One man has said there are times when the police lay their hands on a criminal and yet are not satisfied.

Behind this petty thief or thug is some other person, dimly guessed at, some master hand moving the pawn. The police can recognize that of that other strategy, for the man himself could never have had thought of it. My friends, the marks of satanic strategy and power walk our streets.

Did you read your papers? You know what I'm talking about. Women cannot walk the streets by day or night all over this land. Demons are raging, hells are popping.

Sinner, you need to be rescued, not only from sin, but from the power of Satan himself. Next Lord's Day, we'll be ready then to start talking about the provision of salvation in Christ for men in the clutches of sin and in the power of Satan. And now my time is gone, and the message must come to a close.

May God bless you, everyone.