I want to introduce you to a man
who was one of the most powerful evangelists
of the 20th century in America.
His name was Ralph Barnard, and he was
known as God's Hitchhiker Evangelist.
In fact, that's the title of my biography
on his life, God's Hitchhiker Evangelist, because Ralph
Barnard had a 40-year itinerant preaching ministry
that shook America from coast to coast with
revival.
Sometimes people would be carried away on stretchers
from a Barnard meeting because they had become
insensible.
Sometimes sudden deaths would occur to those who
stood in the way of his meetings.
Sometimes entire towns were shaken in revival under
his preaching.
In one town in particular, 300 signatures were
raised on a petition to run him out
of town because his preaching was disturbing the
residents.
But it was the disturbing presence of Christ
that upset so many when Barnard preached.
Ralph Barnard had a way of getting under
your skin when he preached like a splinter
beneath your finger which gnaws at you and
makes you wince.
He could get you mad.
He could get you under conviction, get you
to the foot of Calvary, and at the
feet of a Savior whose fountain of blood
can wash all sins away.
He preached the gospel in its purity and
proper order.
He often preached on the doctrines of ruin,
redemption, repentance, and regeneration.
I want to read you, friends, an excerpt
from one of his sermons.
This one's entitled, I Remember Dixie.
Here now are his words.
In my early ministry, I went to the
world's largest oil town.
There were 50,000 people there crawling over
one another's backs to see who could get
to hell the quickest.
I was the only preacher there for 16
months, and I watched men die.
I preached an average three funerals a day.
I preach as many as seven funerals in
one day.
I was just a boy of 23, and
I lived with death.
I lived in the county hospital where the
old folks would be sent to rot and
die, and when they were dying, they would
call for the preacher.
I lived in the houses of ill fame
and the saloons where men would get shot
and poor women would get shot or die
of disease, and just before they died, they'd
call for the preacher, and there they would
look in my face and beg me not
to let them go to hell.
They would want me to pray for them,
but it would be too late to pray
for them.
I remember Dixie.
Dixie was the queen of the dance hall
girls in my oil field town.
When she came to die, she was just
23 years old, but she'd already been married
seven times and was now living in sin
with an eighth man.
I remember Dixie when she called for me.
She'd been on the dance floor, and she
was dancing with some man, and another fellow
came and tried to take her out of
the arms of the other man.
They got into a scuffle, and somebody pulled
the trigger, and instead of shooting the man,
the bullet went to the vitals of Dixie.
They carried her into the bedroom there.
There was no use to take her to
the hospital.
They summoned the doctor and the nurse, and
in a little while, my phone rang, and
someone said, Preacher, Dixie is dying, and she's
calling for you.
When I got there, the doctor was gone,
and the nurse was there.
She said, Preacher, you can come on in.
We've done all we can.
There's no hope for Dixie.
I went over and sat by the bed.
I said, Dixie, this is the preacher, and
you sent for me.
What do you want, Dixie?
Oh, she said, Preacher, don't let me go
to hell.
I said, Dixie, I wish I could keep
you out of hell, but I can't keep
you out of hell.
She said, Preacher, won't you pray for me?
I said, Dixie, I'm afraid it's too late
to pray now.
God never saved anybody unless they were brought
to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ.
And so she said, well, Preacher, how do
you do that?
And the best I could, I sat by
her bedside in that late midnight hour.
When I could almost see death in her
face, I preached unto her the law and
the gospel.
And when I finished, Dixie turned.
I don't know how she had the strength
enough to do it, but she turned and
faced the wall with her back turned toward
me, and great racking sobs filled the room.
I thought they would tear her body in
pieces.
Great racking sobs came from Dixie's throat.
In a little while, she turned back and
looked into my face, and I saw hell,
brother.
I saw hell.
Oh, I saw hell.
And as I demanded that she repent right
then and there, Dixie said, I can't repent.
I can't repent.
And God helped me.
She died as she said that last.
I can't repent.
I carry the memory of Dixie's beautiful face
around with me, and sometimes I wake up
in the night and I hear that croaking
voice, Preacher, I can't repent.
I can't repent.
The last words that girl ever said here
on this earth before her body began to
rot and her spirit went back into the
hands of God who gave it the last
word she ever said.
I can't repent.