Ye Must Be Born Again

... talking, everybody having a good time, and me enjoying it, and then say something like that.

[Brother Mattsson-Boze speaks.]

I was thinking this morning, coming down the road; I was late for the breakfast. We're staying about, around ten mile out in the country. I just happened to think of how many times I've been late. You know, I was even late for my wedding. They waited and waited for me. And now if I can just be late for my funeral.

[Someone says, “You got married, though.”]

I got married, yes.

Well it's so good to be here, and I would just like to ask this question before, just a short time here, just to add this fellowship. My ministry has been such a thing as ramming and cramming from place to place. There's no one knows what the hardships that produces to me, and to keep from going and meeting people, and shaking their hands. As I said last night, a lady invited me down to her house to eat dinner. My, I'd imagine I'd've had some real good old grits, and what it takes to make the South, you know. But how you going to do it. See, you just can't.

So I was just thinking this morning, it's been such a wonderful time here. Last night I mentioned about prayer for the sick. And Billy comes down in the afternoon, and as he usually does and visits around with the young folks, and everybody, shaking their hands. And he comes back and said, “Daddy, there's lot of people there to be prayed for.”

Now the reason I haven't been praying for the people is like in the meeting.... I just left Dallas; you all were speaking of Dallas. And conventions, like this, why, mostly I try just to preach, you see, because it gives me a chance to rest from those visions. Visions is what tears me down.

But I've got two more meetings after this, and then I'm going to take a good long rest; I just got to have it. I just feel myself.... And I was at Dallas the other day to see five of our brethren off the field with nervous breakdowns, Raymond Richey and Brother Grant. And I talked to him and sitting there and holding himself and crying. And another fellow sitting with his hands out like this, and he was screaming from nervous breakdowns, and going too long. You know, we're not made out of sawdust; we're still human beings you know. And so, and I haven't let up since December, so I've just got to take some rest.

And I will be glad to finish the services up; I guess you're all getting tired of me hollering at you the way I have been anyhow. I thought I ought to have one night to kind of straighten it up with the sisters, the way I've been talking about them. But, you know, I didn't mean that to you (see), you sisters. I meant it to those who are impersonating you.

Well, here's one thing, I believe the Lord said that He made a woman ... man was to rule over the woman. As long as a man lets you do it, let him do it; well then, it's the man's fault, isn't it? That's right. They're supposed to obey their ruler.

But, it does make me feel real funny to see the church just getting in the condition that it's in. I don't mean to be rude, you know that. But when I get a chance to really lay it on in conventions where ministers and all are sitting around, they'll start laying it on too, you see, so then we don't want to do that. Have to use just a little bit of psychology with it, get the ministers started. If we just get back to the old hewing line like our fathers used to lay the rules down, “This is it!” See, and they abided by it, see. So we need it now. Satan is such a cunning enemy, just moves in so.... Sin is so (What would I say?), it's so rude, you know, it's cunning, just kind just sut.... That's the word: subtle. Just so subtle: it'll just move right in so easy, you know; it looks so innocent. The first thing you know it's just like a spider with a web, got you, and there you go.

I'm thinking of one thing, that's the end of the road. Which is, perhaps, not too far off for me; I'm not a boy no more. And I've got to think of meeting all the people again. My friend was telling me one time.... They was giving a prize; and I want this to go real down deep to every one of us.

In Vancouver, British Columbia, they were giving a prize for a boy that could ride a bicycle, twelve inches across, for a hundred yards, they give him a new Schwinn bicycle. And all the boys, they thought they were fine riders. They'd go downtown for their mama and get a basket of groceries and put it under their arm and ride back and never even touch the handlebars. So each one knew he was going to win this contest.

They had a little old sissy boy there, that just ... you know, mama's boy like. And none of them cared very much for him. So they all got on their.... As their numbers were called, they got on this board to ride. And each one fell off. But little sissy boy rode it right out to the end, never made a wobble.

And so all the boys got around him and said, “How did you do it?”

He said, “I tell you, boys, here is where it was.” Said, “I watched what you all were doing, and I seen your mistake,” see. “You were looking down like this, trying to keep it on the board. I just watched the end and held steady.”

There you are, (see, see). That's the idea. Not what's right here, but the end, and keep steady, looking to the Lord Jesus. Now let us pray just a moment.

Lord, keep our minds on Thee, let us look to the end, to when we shall see Jesus. And here in this convention, Lord, now this group of fine brothers and sisters is assembled together here to have breakfast and fellowship. How do we know that our next meeting time will not be at a breakfast, but be at a wedding supper, where we shall share the joys of the Lord forever.

Bless these men, Lord, who's been preaching for years, sitting here this morning, gray-headed and stooped-shouldered. O God, You alone knows what they've sacrificed and went through with. And Father, I pray with all my heart, if I've found grace in Your sight, bless these brethren, give them great ministries yet, Lord, for we need each one of them and all their peculiarities, and their ministry. Yet it all goes to make up Your great body of saints and believers. And as I stand, Lord, as their brother and fellow citizen of the same kingdom, help us this morning to speak a few words that would encourage us to move forward. In Jesus' name we ask it. Amen.

I just wonder, before I speak to you just on a little subject, how many would think that the Holy Spirit would be more pleased if I start tonight holding healing services. I haven't got time to consult and we have to give out some prayer cards 'cause there's too many people there just to say, “Let this bunch come here and this one over here.” We will have to pass prayer cards out. Would you think it would be a good thing to hold the next two nights of healing service, so I could get the general idea? Let's see the ... well, thank you, that's all right. Now, we will do it then.

When is your afternoon meeting, sir? Two o'clock. Well, I tell you, I will send Leo.... Where is he at? I guess he, Leo and Gene down there, Billy, or some of them this afternoon with prayer cards, give to each one that wants a prayer card. I will change my subjects tonight and pray for the sick.

And the next convention I want to preach on: The Eagle Stirs It's Nest. I've tried it for the last two or three visits, all right. Now I just enjoy the Word, don't you? Just enjoy the Word. So this morning when I jumped up and I said, “Oh, wife,” and the kiddies were staying several miles out in the country, and they were just holding up their breakfast till I can get back to them to get their breakfast.

And I got the little fellows with me, and, oh, I have such a big time with those kiddies and everything. I don't get to be with them very much, and when I go home at night time we wallow around on the floor till midnight. Joseph wants a piggy-back, and Becky wants me to tell her a story about something; you know how it goes. And so, we have a great time though.

And we didn't get in last night till ... to bed till nearly one o'clock. And then Joseph, I think, slept half the night a-straddle my neck then, and so, we love our children. And I was taking them to breakfast, and they just go sleep in while I was coming down to have this time of fellowship and a breakfast that you couldn't buy with money, neither to serve it across the table: a breakfast of fellowship around the saints of God. And no service is right without reading His Word, so I want to read just a portion from Saint John 3, and say, the 5th verse. And just talk to you, because my throat's raw.

Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a man be born of water and ... Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

I'm wondering this morning, as we are gathered here together, brothers and sisters, you ministers and Sunday school teachers, and whatever you are. What does this all mean? Why are we here, and what's the great struggle? And each night I've been trying to say this, look like, many times trying to condemn organizations and trying to condemn this, and condemn that. I am an extremist, that's true, and sometimes I go so far on one side I overbalance the other. But I don't mean to do that. I'm trying to say this: that all of our fine organizations, and our fine men, and fine women, yet, when we come in His presence I'm afraid that we might find ourself short, and we don't want to be that way then; let's have it now.

As an old colored man was saying not long ago for me in a convention ... or, meeting, and he said, something another, said, “I talked it over with the Lord a long time ago. And I told Him if there's anything wrong with me, let me get it right now because I don't want no trouble at the river.” I think that well expresses what I'm trying to say, “Let's talk it over now so we won't have no trouble at the river, because you can't backtrack then, see. Let's be more sure right now.”

And so when Jesus said to this great ruler, “Ye must be born again.” Then, “Why must I be born again?” That's what I want to know. If I am a minister of the Gospel, if I'm a good person, I pay my debts, and I'm just, and honest, and walk upright before men, what more could God require of me? Why must I have some kind of an experience, as people tell me, that I must be born again? Why did Jesus say to this ruler, who lived high and holy, and was requested that ... or, not “requested,” but “commanded” that he must be born again.

So, not trying to squeeze in a Calvinistic belief now, you see; I'm not saying this. Know that I'm talking to a legalist people, that's not it at all, because I'm a legalist too. But I believe this: that Calvin had something, and so did Arminian have something. And they both had something, but they run off on the deep ends of it. The Calvinist says, “Well, I'm saved and that settles it.” His life proves that he isn't, then he isn't saved.

And the legalist says, “I've got to do this, and I must do this, and I must do that.” Then if you're not born again you're still not saved, so there you are, see. It's in between, in the middle of the road, is where we've got to stay.

What you are, what Calvinism is, what grace is, is what God did for you. But what works is, is what you do for God in appreciation of what He did for you through grace. That's the whole answer. Then if I am saved, then I live like I'm saved. But I could live like I was saved and not be saved, see. So, it's the fact then, brings it to this spot, that we must be born again.

So the born-again experience tells what we are. It doesn't mean that we.... I believe in shouting, and all the manifestations and demonstrations of the Spirit, but yet that's not it yet, see. It's something different from that. It's a new creature, something in the heart. And I wonder if we ministers, both men and women, if many times we don't just say the word, “You must be born again,” and take it over the head of the people like that. When we've got to come back to the spot and let them know what a birth means, see. It has got to come back to something more than words; it has got to come back to a fundamental fact. And that is this great experience of being born again and what it produces for us, see.

Now, there's many times that we begin to think that “Well, if we are born again and we got happy, and shouted, and spoke with tongues or manifested God in some way, that's it. But, brethren, you know as ministers yourself, that that's not it. Now we've seen people jump, shout, dance, and cheat, steal, lie and everything else, see, and we know that. So that isn't what He was talking about.

And when Martin Luther said, “The just shall live by faith,” he said, “we got it.” And John Wesley come along with something new and Luther was ... he was right so far as he said, “The just shall live by faith”; see, it's right: they shall live by faith. And Luther said that the just shall live by faith, then we must do that. And he thought he had it, but he found out that he didn't.

Wesley said, “When you get sanctified, and shout, you got it,” but he found out a lot of them shouted that didn't have it. And Pentecost says if we speak with tongues we got it, but we found out many spoke with tongues and didn't have it; that's right. So it's something different from that, brother, that's right.

Jesus never said, “If they shout, if they speak with tongues, if they do this....” Said, “By their fruits you shall know them.” And the fruit of the Spirit is not shouting, speaking in tongues; that's attributes of the Holy Spirit, of course, but it can be impersonated; we know it.

I've dealt with lots of evil spirits in my life, witch doctors and so forth, and across the world. I've seen evil spirits shout, speak with tongues, do all the manifestations, seen them do all kinds of signs and wonders and everything else, demons. And deny there was even a God, see. But you can't go by that.

And when it comes to our emotion and.... Remember, I believe in it; I believe that anybody that's got heartfelt religion will shout, and make up a ... I believe that, but yet, that's not all of it. Like the old colored man was down here in the south, eating watermelon. Asked to give him a slice of watermelon, said, “How was that, boy?” Said, “That was good, but there's some more of it.” So, that's the way it is this way: This is good, but there's some more of it, you see. We just can't live by this one slice.

So there's something different. So if you brethren and ministers, which are far more able to explain this.... Now I could've took a little text here which I had in my mind here to preach on: Life. But when I come down, something struck me, “You're before ministers this morning, you're before men who's holding the keys in their hands. Speak the best you can about things that'll help these men.” As long as these people can be helped, the whole world will get a help; your congregations and everywhere, they'll get a help from it. After all, brethren, we're working for one place. All of our differences and everything, we're yet bringing souls to one master, that's God. That's what we're here for.

And now this morning I want to express to you what I think, and why I must be born again. And I want to express it to you in a child like way. Let's take a little trip, if you will, and go back before the foundation of the world.

Now we're taught that our bodies come from the dust of the earth. And medical science says that, and the Bible says that, so there's one thing that they agree upon: that we come from the dust of the earth.

And here sometime ago I was speaking at a Kiwanis meeting. And I was talking on a subject of many ... that many people and what they believed and so forth. Then this thought come this: that where our bodies came from. And I asked the doctor, I said, “Doctor, I want to ask you a question,” which was present at the meeting. “Is it true that my body came from the dust?”

He said, “Why, Reverend, you ought to know that.”

I said, “Yes, but I want to know how it came from the dust.”

“Why,” he said, “by the food you eat.” Said, “You eat the food and it turns into blood cells.”

“Well,” I said, “then if that be right, then more I eat, the more earth I put in myself, the bigger I would get, and the stronger I would get. Like pouring water from a jug into a glass, or putting material down, piles of material, or so forth; more I put in it, bigger and stronger I would be.”

Said, “That's correct.”

I said, “Then I want to ask you a question. How is it when I was sixteen years old, seventeen, on up till about twenty-five, I eat bread, meat, potatoes, so forth, like I eat now; and they turned into blood cells, that's right.” I said, “Why is it I eat the same thing now as I eat then, but when I eat them then I got bigger, stronger all the time. And when I got to be about twenty-five, I eat more of it, better, I'm getting older, weaker, going down.” Why is it, if I'm pouring water out of a jug into a glass and it's filling up till it gets about half full, then more I pour faster and faster it goes down, scientifically, tell me how it's done. It cannot be done.

But the Bible has the answer. It's an appointment that God has made with the human race. You're once.... You are here, then you must go away, and God gets His picture. And I'm going to just mythically place, this morning, the oldest man and woman here in this gathering this morning before me, husband and wife.

And a few years ago you were young beautiful woman, and the man was a young handsome man. And maybe you just entered your ministry. Mother was pretty, and how that the day that you led her down to the altar, and told that servant of God that you'd taken her to be your wife, lawful wedded wife. How happy you were. Well, you were eating the same food that you eat here this morning.

And just a few years after you were married, one morning you got up, and you said, “Mother, there's a wrinkle under those pretty eyes, a-coming.”

She said, “Yes, dad, and I've been noticing the gray hairs coming in your temple.” That's when first baby was borned, about.

What happened? Death had set in. It has put you in many a corner, but soon it's going to put you in a corner and keep you there, see. Because it's going to take you. God had His picture fixed what He wanted you in the hereafter. Now I believe in resurrection, Christianity believes in resurrection, the whole thing's based on resurrection.

Now many people think that they go down like this, they'll come back up some kind of a spirit with wings a flying. You'll come back up men and women like you are now. That's the way the.... If this Bible falls from the platform down to the table, and to take another Bible and put in its place, that's not resurrection; that's replacement. Resurrection is bringing the same Bible up that went down. And resurrection is bringing the same person up that went down. And then in the resurrection all....

Now this morning you're old and gray and stooped shouldered. And mother and you are having lots of ... a lot of aches and pains and things that you used to not have, and it's changed. But remember, you're still serving the same God that brought you on the earth. Then it must be all in God's purpose to let you get this way. But remember, in the resurrection you'll not have a gray hair nor a wrinkle. Everything that death has did to you will be forgotten in the resurrection.

God, when He got the picture painted, He said, “There they are. Now come on, death, but you can't take them until I let you do it.” And then when you go into the dust and raise up again, you'll come back the same lovely couple that you was at the altar that morning, to remain forever that way. So what have we got to be scared about?

Someone said to me not long ago, said, “Billy, do you mean to tell me...? I was preaching on Abraham, those angels that come to him and spoke to him. And I said, ”It was God and two angels.“

Said, “Do you meant to tell me that that was God in a body of flesh?”

I said, “It sure was.” And I said, “It wasn't a theophany; it was God. It was a man in flesh, and He was God.”

He said, “Then I want to ask you, how did He get that body?”

I said, “Well, the great Creator, who made heavens and earth,” and we're made out of sixteen elements—that's potash, and petroleums, and cosmic light, and calcium, and so forth—why, if He couldn't take those sixteen elements and “Wheww,” breathe them together and say, “Come here Gabriel, step into that.” And make one for Michael, and one for Himself, why, certainly He did. And then vanish just in a second. That's my Father. No matter what happens to this potash and calcium, He knows right where it's laying.

I was standing before a glass not long ago, combing these few hairs I got left. My wife said to me, she said, “Billy, you're almost completely baldheaded.”

I said, “But I haven't lost a one of them.”

She said, “Pray tell me, where they're at.”

I said, “I will answer you when you answer me. Tell me where they was before I got the: I will tell you where they are waiting for me.”

If they are, they was before they are. They had to come from the materials of this earth. Then they were here before I come here, and they'll be here after I'm gone. But someday God will resurrect us both, and we will come together as the young man that used to be a long time ago. My Father, who could say, “Step into this and step into that,” He will take my soul some day, and your soul, and we will step back to a young man and a young woman again, to live forever.

Now God is not a Sears and Roebuck Harmony House either. He makes us look different. He makes things different. He makes big mountains and little mountains. He makes poplar trees, and He makes oak trees, and He makes palm trees. He makes shrubs, and He makes great trees. He makes rivers, He makes deserts, He makes oceans, and He makes plains. He makes red-headed, white-headed, brown-headed, black-headed; little, short, fat, and indifferent, see. He makes them that way, because that's what He likes. His own nature proves what He is.

Now they talk about.... Many of you people here from Florida. You got a wonderful place, but you take better care of your grass than I do what hair I got left, feather-edging it all the time. Keeping it just smooth, and this way, that way. Now it may be pretty to the human eye, but to me, I like the jungle, the top of the mountains, where she's rugged, the way God made it, and the way He likes to look at it, before it was perverted.

I like the way God makes things. And I like the way He makes people. He's a God of variety. He makes red flowers, white flowers, blue flowers; that's the way He makes mankind. And that's the way we will be in the resurrection.

You take violets and cross breed them, and let them alone, they'll go back to their original violet. And you know, some of you stock raisers, you breed a mare to a mule, a mule can't breed back again, has to go back to its original again. That's the way it'll be in the resurrection: We will go back to the original, go back to what man was when God made him in His image in the garden of Eden. He will be a man, she will be a woman. And she won't need Max Factors to make her look pretty; she will be pretty to begin with.

Now notice, how did all this come about? Now if we come from the dust of the earth—which the Bible says we did, and also science says we come from the dust of the earth—then surely, our bodies was laying on this earth when this was yet a volcanic eruption without a speck of life. If it didn't, where did it come from?

Do you know, that body that you're living in this morning, was here ten thousand years before one speck of life ever laid on the earth. When God had this old missile hanging out yonder, turning it around the sun and revolving it around this way, and was creating in there calcium, potash, and petroleum, and so forth, He had in His great mind then, that you'd sit at this table this morning. Oh, hallelujah, He's the infinite God!

When a carpenter goes to build a house, how does he do? Lay out all of his lumber first. He has got in his mind just what he's going to build. God had, before the world was ever ... had a speck of life on it, He had your body laying right there. If it didn't, where did it come from? That's the reason He was twisting it, and rolling it, and turning it. He would have it to the sun this way and it'd make potash; and He'd turn it back this way and it'd make calcium; He'd turn it back this way, it would make petroleum. Oh, blessed, be His holy name!

What we got to fear about? We should be the freest and happiest people there is anywhere. And we don't have to guess about it; God's in our midst and proves it. That's right. And it's according to His Word and His Spirit.

Now let's take it.... Our bodies.... Before there was even ... the earth was finished being formed, our bodies that we're living in right now, was laying on the earth. Potash, calcium, petroleum, so forth. Now let's take a little picture so we won't miss it.

And after the earth had been shaped and all of it laying there just a bleached desert, never had life on it, never was nothing called life, but all the material was laying there to make our bodies. And I can hear God say to the great Holy Spirit, “Go forth now and brood over the earth.” Now we know the word brood is “to mother,” like the hen will brood, or to coo like a dove calling to its mate. “Go brood over the earth.”

Now we will have to use an imagination here, and to make a drama. Then the great Holy Spirit went forth and spread forth His wings over the earth, and begin to brood for a purpose. And that was to bring forth something to project what God was. As I said the other night, “Which was first, a sinner or a Savior?” What's all this about anyhow? Which was first, a healer or sickness?

Why, certainly a healer. Well, why did we ever become sinners then? It had to be that way. If God is a Saviour, He had to have something to save. So there's nothing wrong; it's just all working His way. Now I couldn't say this to sinners; I'm saying it to ministers, see, and children of God. It's all working all right, no matter what we do, or do not do, it's going to come out all right, 'cause what God foreknew He ordained.

Now notice, then as it's a moving around, as it is, it's coming out all right. There's no need of us worrying, because it's going to be okay.

Now, if God ... if we have light, daytime. What if there'd never been no night, how would you have know what daytime was? How could day.... If you had never been sick, how would you know how to enjoy health? If you had never been lost, how would you know to enjoy being saved?

Why, brother, some day when Jesus shall come and the resurrection, when God brings this world to justice, and every body that's sleeping in the dust of this earth shall rise in His presence, and we stand around this earth millions strong, singing redemption's stories, the Angels will be gathered on the outside with bowed heads, not knowing what we're talking about. They wasn't lost, they don't know what it means to be saved. We know what it means to be lost, and to be saved. We got a Father.

Did you ever notice Jesus said, when He cast out a devil, He done it with His finger. Jesus said, “If I cast out devils, the finger of God ... with the finger of God.” See what a devil is to Him? For healing it's just a little thing. But watch when a sheep is lost. What did He do? He went and got the sheep and put it on His shoulders.

What's the strongest part of the man? His back and his legs. See, the devil is nothing to Him. But the sheep, He puts it across His shoulders and holds its feet. And He packs it with the strongness of His body till He gets it back to the fold. God loves His children.

Now how did He get them? The Holy Spirit went forth and brooded over the earth. And as He begin brooding, cooing.... Let's just say, for the talks sake, He was going ... He was calling —cooing like the evening dove when she's sitting, cooing to her mate. And as He began to coo over nothing but a bleached desert of volcanic eruption, look coming down the hill there. I see some potash begin to move over with some calcium. I notice then again, the strange thing, a little moisture and petroleum begin to run together. And right from under a little rock a little Easter flower raised up its head. Life come on the earth. And it screams and said, “Come, Father, look at this.”

God the Father looks it over and said, “That's very pretty, just keep on cooing.”

And He cooed and the flowers came up, and the grass came up. And plant life, and trees came up and birds flew out of the earth, and out of the dust, and after while the animal life came up. And He kept on cooing and a man came up. He looked wonderful, but he was lonesome; he had no helpmate.

So to see that.... I want this to be real sticky now. God never put the woman in the original creation. She's a byproduct of the man. Man and woman was one. A woman, in the beginning, He took the woman from Adam. And man and wife are really one, but that was done to reproduce themselves again, to put them in flesh. But He took the feminish part of the man and made a woman out of it.

Therefore when a woman tries to act like a man, dress like a man, and talk like a man, she's out of her place. A woman is feminish, sweet, loving. Not big and carrying on and acting like a man. Well, she's not supposed to be. And when she does that, her life is perverted. She's sweet, loving, kind. Where Adam is more the burly type, for he was the man, the masculine type. The woman was feminish, but it's the same spirit, for He took her from Adam.

And notice, when a man takes a wife, and he takes this wife into his bosom (We're a mixed audience.) and presses this woman to his bosom as his sweetheart, she puts her print on him. Another woman there would mar it forever. They are one! No other woman should ever fit that mold. You got no right with your arms around a woman, dance floor, or nowhere; that's right. You've got a wife, and you pulled her to your bosom, and God put her on your heart, and printed you against her, and she's yours! And you belong to her.

And you woman that take another man in your arm, you've marred the mold that you were taken from. Remember that. When you act like a man, you're out of your place. And when man begins to get sissy too, babying and this, that and the other, he's out of his place. He's boss, he's ruler. Now I don't mean a floor mat, I just said a ruler, a helpmate. Not to kick women around, they're not.

But the Bible said ... God said in the creation, “He shall rule over you.” Not to be a boss, but to be a helpmate, part of you. She's sweet, and kind, and tender; you should lead her around sweetly because she's part of you. You go to mistreating her, then you're mistreating yourself. And a man mentally right won't do that. All right.

So now notice. But when he seen this man, what a specie he was. I don't believe some great prehistoric animal. I believe he was a man, just like God said he was. And I don't believe that Eve was some like.... I was standing in a museum in Greece one time and seen some famous picture that Eve and Adam. And there was Adam, hair, my, out of his nose like that. And Eve with, oh, such a horrible looking creature. One leg bigger than the other and foot setting way out sideways, and her teeth were setting like this. If that would be what Adam saw first, a man would appreciate a woman like that.

What was it? It's a strain, that's the reason.... Why don't man come to Christ to begin with, when he realizes he's a sinner? He's still hiding in the bushes and God's still calling. Shows what he did in the beginning, that's what he's made out of: a coward, to begin with.

Now, but Eve was beautiful, she was real pretty. Adam was just an ordinary man, strong, big muscles, shaggy hair around his neck. Let's say Eve was.... They were both naked; they knowed no sin. And the first day they were sitting there, and Adam looked at her and he said, “Why, she's flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone.” Why? She was taken from him; she was part of him. Not in the original creation (It was over.), but He took from, to show that they're one.

And what about marriage and divorce today? Amongst Pentecostal people. Then we teach.... “Oh, we believe you must be born again.” You see what I'm getting at? If you believe it, then let's live like it. Let's produce what we're talking about. Because that we keep our mind on the church and on this organization, on this group, and this woman, and that man. Take your mind off of them! They'll fail. Put your mind on Christ, on His Word, then it can't fail. Let Him be your example, not no man.

Lot of times these people passing through the country, called divine healers. People take them for an example. You better get your mind off of them; that's right. You keep your mind on Christ; He's the one to keep your mind on. Not on your pastor, love your pastor and respect him; he's a honorable man, a man of God, truly. But keep your mind on Christ, and your affection set on Christ. Just respect him as what he is, as a reverend, because he represents God to you.

Now, but, then we will notice them, how sweet and loving they was. And now, I say her eyes looked like the stars shining, as blue as they could be. And them, like, just sparkle, she must have been beautiful. And Adam looked at her, why, it was love at the first sight. An operation had been performed and she was taken from his side.

And he must have took her by the hand, and we'd say this, said, “Let's take a little stroll, darling.” That was Mr. and Mrs. You, years ago. And we took a little stroll, and they went down through the garden. And the first thing you know, there come a ferocious roar out the jungle. Who was it? It was Leo, the lion. She couldn't get scared, wasn't nothing about her to scare; she had perfect love, and love casteth out fear. And Adam said, “Come here, Leo. Eve, you've never met it. This, I have called him, the lion, I've named everything here.” And he scratched him on the back of the neck and he meowed like a kitty and followed them.

Cheetah the tiger come out, and all the animals followed them around. And after while Adam said, “Oh, sweetheart, do you know what? It's almost evening; we'd better go to church.” That was the first Adam and Eve, as you are their offsprings today.

Not, “We must go to the roadhouse; we must go play bunco.” “We must go to worship, when the sun goes down.” They didn't go to a fine big church all decorated up in mahogany and a hundred thousand dollar organ in it. They went up into the woods, the timber. And perhaps, that the Logos that went out of God, let's say it was in the form of a pillar of fire: halo. I can just see it hanging in the bushes yonder, and the streaks from it shining down when Adam and Eve knelt before the Creator to worship. And I can hear a voice coming from That and says, “Has My children enjoyed their stay today upon the earth that the Lord Thy God has given thee?”

“Yes, Father, it has been wonderful.”

See, they're tangible, they can touch, they can eat, they can love, and they.... Why, they're real. They're not spirit, they're something tangible. God made angels, but He never made you one; you'll never be one. And all these here, “Brown-eyed angel waits for me.” That's a lie of the devil. But your wife, she is your wife yet. “What God.... What you joined on earth, I will join in heaven. What you bind on earth, I will bind in heaven.” Nothing shall separate what God does; can't.

Then there she was, a woman. And they said, “Yes, Lord, we have enjoyed ourselves so much today on the earth that the Lord Thy God has given to us. And we love You, Father.” They're worshipping. 'Course, “Now I lay me down to sleep.” And Adam laid his big arm out, and Eve laid her beautiful little head on his arm, like you did, mother to dad, years ago.

And as soon as they got sleeping, He laid Leo the lion down over here, and Cheetah the tiger, down here, laid them all down (God did.) to rest His creation. And then the heavenly hosts come out. I can see Gabriel walk up and say, look at Adam and say, “You know, Father, he looks just like You.”

How many times have wife and I went up to the bed of little Joseph, last night even, and she said, “Billy, you know his forehead's high; it's like yours.”

And I said, “But his eyes are large, like yours.”

Why? He should look like us, he's the offspring of our union. And man should look like God because he was made in His image, certainly. “Father, he looks just like You. Look at his lips and his eyes.” Course, the Father looking at His children, how sweet it was. Never to be sick, never to die, never have a heartache, never to have a worry: Wasn't that wonderful? Mother never get old, neither would dad. Never be no gray hairs, no wrinkles in the face, always be beautiful and loving forever.

Then in come sin. And sin marred the picture. But sin can't stop the purpose of God! God will not be defeated! So then, because sin came in, woman brought forth man, which was secondary, a perverted way. God never created him out of the dust of the earth with His own hands, but woman had to bring him through sex.

Then what happened? Where we make our bodies from the dust of the earth—that calcium, that lumber, the potash, that God had laying out—is still being used. One day the last bit of it will be used up; that's right. The lumber pile will go down. But God still makes man from the dust of the earth. And you come on this earth without having any reason, any way, no way at all you had of bringing yourself here. God brought you here.

Then, if sin has marred it and God cannot be defeated, then people are coming on the earth by a perverted way, but still, God's lumber is being used up. The potash, calcium and stuff He lets us eat it from ... and by your ... till the soil, and by the sweat of your brow you'll make your living. But man come just exactly the same, just exactly. God still has His purpose in His mind.

Now what happens? If the Holy Spirit brought me and you on this earth this morning ... or, you and I, rather, on this earth and made us what we are, without having any choice. We come what we are without having a choice. If He made me what I am, without having a choice, and yet I was made in God's image and brought forth yet through a sinful act that God permitted to be done, a perverted act by holy wedlock from my father and my mother. And I come on this earth, and I am what I am at my best by God's grace, and without having any choice, how much more can He raise me up in the last days if I make a choice.

Now the Holy Spirit has never left the earth; it's still on the earth, and it's brooding over the earth. “Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.” All you materials that's been built in the image of God, cooing, calling, wooing. And if the Holy Spirit woos, and we come back and say, “Yes, great God, You made me and I love You. And You are my Creator, and I'm sinful, and I'm ashamed of it.” Then He places in me eternal life.

Then if He give me eternal life by answering back to His call, and made me what I am without having a choice, how much more can He raise me up after I've made a choice, and been filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God's own life. And you can no more lose that life than God can lose Himself. The Word comes from the Greek word zoe. “I give unto them eternal life.”

Anything that had a beginning has a end. It's those things which have not a beginning, has an end. Did you ever think of that? God the great master rainbow in the skies, (we will say like that) with the seven Spirits of God. Red, perfect love. After that comes phileo love, from agapao to phileo love. That's the love that you have for your wife. If some man would insult her, you'd shoot his brains out, see. Because it creates a jealousy. But that's phileo love, secondary love.

Then comes lust, for another man's wife. Then comes filth, see. It just becomes perverted. But all of this kind of a love had a beginning. But when that real genuine love of God, that I've been talking about, comes into the human being by the new birth, being born again, it had no beginning and it'll have no end. You are then a Son of God and a daughter of God, and your affections are on things above.

Phileo love would make you shoot a man for insulting your wife. Agapao love would make you pray for his lost soul. That's the difference.

So you must be born again. If that ... if just friendship love, “Oh, I belong to the Assemblies,” I say. “And you belong to the Church of God, sir,” say that. And I say, “Oh, sure, we have wonderful friendship, fellowship.” That's not it yet. I know we're interdenominational here this morning. But brethren, this is not the full answer. This is the answer for friendship and fellowship, but what about God? See what I mean?

Agapao love is different from phileo love. Phileo love is, we come together, reason together, say, “Yes, we're brethren,” that's fine, shake our hands, sure. “Why, I'm interdenomination,” sure, birds of a feather together. That's what we should be, I like that, that's good, you got a good point here. But that's not all of it, brother. We got to have something another that pulls us from everything in the earth to that Creator yonder. To that One who gives us the eternal life, that puts in this calcium and potash. No matter how old it gets, how wrinkled it gets, how dried up it gets, or how sick it gets, God knows every ounce of it. He weighed it out in His scales before the foundation of the earth. And I was only put in this to make a decision. And I've made my decision to Christ, and there's not.... All devils of hell can keep me from being raised up at the last day and made into His image.

But without that eternal life, this fellowship life, it'll fade away. It had a beginning, it'll have an end. But with eternal life, it can no more die than eternity can itself. And what is eternity? A perfect circle that has no end. Just revolves it.... He started it ring around this way, go through the table, through the floor, through the earth, it's still a perfect circle. And God had no beginning or had no end.

And when he puts that Spirit in us, in this flesh that He is brood from the earth. And our phileo love has become to a place that it's overrode by agapao love, then we got eternal life in this calcium and potash that's been fed and brood from the earth. And how much more can the God who made it, raise it up again. Therefore, you must be born again.

Sitting at a breakfast here not long ago, just two ministers, myself and a Methodist preacher. Not breakfast, just a little lunch; we was having some ice cream together. And the 4-H club of Kentucky had showed there on the radio program, that they had perfected a little machine who could turn out little grains of corn just exactly like you grow in the field. Said, “Let's take one sack that's growed in the field, and the other that's made by the machine, put them together, you couldn't tell one from the other. Get them a handful out of each one, mix them up together, there's no way of ever telling it again.” See?

They make the same cornbread, it'll make the same grits, it'll make the same corn flakes, it's got the same amount of potash, calcium, and everything else that goes in it. Everything's right in there, even the heart of the grain, the skin on the outside, just perfect. Even the laboratory, you couldn't cut them apart and tell the difference. The only way you said you'd ever know them was plant them. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

No matter how real it looks, brother, it has got to have that touch of God there, eternal life. And the one that God growed in the field, and made Himself, raises again. The one that man made, no matter ... so our man-made organizations, man-made religion is still fig leaves from the garden of Eden. It'll never work until man is born again by the Spirit of God and have eternal life in him.

Minister friends, I'm taking too much of your time, but I want to say this before leaving, leave this with you. As your brother, one who loves you, now just remember this remark before leaving.

Not long ago there was a great man, a master, young fellow. And oh, how he could play. He's just swamping the world with his music. And he was a great artist of it. So one night he was entertaining many thousands of people in a certain nation, England. And they were so amazed, to the great masters around everywhere, and the people were, after he had played his concert, or his music, they were screaming and clapping their hands and going wild. But they noticed the young man paid no attention to their applauding; he kept looking up.

And they were screaming and oh, just carrying on as loud as they could to let him know that they appreciated his music, and he was a genius. But he kept looking up. And they wondered what he was looking at. Way up in the top balcony, the old master teacher had climbed up there. He was keeping his eye as to wonder what the master teacher was going to say about it. He didn't care what they said; it's what the teacher was saying, the old master teacher.

Ministers of the Gospel, let's not notice these big campaigns and applauding of the people. Keep your eyes on the Master, for He's the only One who can raise us up in that day.

Let us pray.

Father God, these rude little remarks coming from a nervous person, but I pray God, that somehow it'll go into the depths of my brothers' and sisters' hearts, that they'll realize, it don't make any difference whether they think that we should have this television program, or this, that or the other. Let us keep our eyes on the Master.

Remember to be born again is to have that extreme love and know that we've passed from death unto life. We have the abundance of life, and the abundant life is that overflowing something that God puts into the human being.

And let us as ministers this morning, as we gather here for this little gathering, let us keep our minds on the Master, knowing that He is the only One who can send forth the Holy Spirit to brood in that day. When this great hydrogen bomb shall strike the earth and she will be back again to a bleached desert, God will begin all over new again. It'll come with those people who has made a decision. Their bodies will be laying here, nothing but back to potash and calcium, petroleum. But the God of heaven, who took their spirit, can put them back as they were. And this is only a shadow of the negative of the picture which will be developed someday when Jesus comes. Then we will see Him as He is and we will know as we're known. Until then, keep us loyal servants, looking up, in Jesus' name. Amen.

I'm so sorry I took so much of your time. And it's already half past nine, about. And I thank you very much. I will go home immediately, and be making ready for prayer and for the sick tonight. God bless you.