UnBorn Again: full transcript and answers

▶ 0:00 Today we are going to talk about spiritual growth. All right, as you can see up there, I have some photos illustrating the natural, spiritual growth. At the top, the baby in the womb, the baby born, and then toddler up to adulthood. And then in the second series, we have, again, the baby in the womb, the baby born, and then following Jesus, growing to maturity. And this is what this is about. And the Bible always uses natural illustrations to help us understand the spiritual. Here we have a seed. Inside every seed is an embryo, okay, that embryo contains life. All it has to do is have the water to hit that seed, after that seed is dead, and that embryo inside will start growing into the image that God designed it to grow in. A bean will not produce a tomato. It will grow into the image.

▶ 1:06 As you can see, the roots start coming out, the root more, and then the plant starts growing out of the ground, and then the leaves start growing on the plant, and in the end you have the fruit of that plant, and that is the growing process. Also in the spirit, we need a seed. See, we need it watered, we need it in the right atmosphere, the right conditions, and the word of God is what’s going to start that seed in us. It’s going to be the embryo, all right.

▶ 1:50 Now we’re going to look at the unborn fetus stage of growth, okay, and how to recognize an unborn seed of God’s word. It’s in the fetus stage, all right. Acts 17:32, “when they heard of the resurrection of the dead.” Okay, they heard. God has chosen the foolishness of preaching to save all that would believe. You know, go out and preach the gospel, and so that is the sowing of the word. When you hear the word, that’s when God will come by his Spirit and try to plant that word in your inner man, in your spirit. We got it. You young ones over here, got it? See, hearing the word is vitally important. All right, “when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked.” See, they didn’t let the word take, get attached to the spiritual man and grow. “Others said, we’ll hear you again.”

▶ 3:04 They put it off. Well, you know, I’m busy, you know, I’m getting a career, I’m going to college, I’m working, I’m raising kids, whatever. You know, I’ll listen another time. “But some believed and followed.” So which ones actually let the embryo grow and produce seed? The one who believed, and not just believed, but they followed. All right, when you mock, and when you want to put it off, you have hindered the growth of the word in your inner man. Acts 2:37: “When they heard this, they were pricked in their heart.” Again, they heard the preaching, they heard the message of the gospel, they were pricked, they were stirred in their heart, in their mind, in their emotional man, that’s the heart, and said, “What shall we do?” You see, now they responded to the word. They didn’t mock and they didn’t put it off. They said, “What must we do?”

▶ 4:08 And so the embryo is getting root and growing in. Acts 16:25-29: Paul and Silas were in jail, and they prayed and sang praises to God, the prisoners what? Heard them. They didn’t do silent prayers. They didn’t do silent praise and worship. The prisoners heard them. All right, then the keeper of the prison was going to kill himself, and Paul said, “Don’t do that. Don’t kill yourself. We’re all here. There’s no one escaped.” And so when the keeper heard, what did he do? He trembled. See, the word affected him. It shook him, it stirred him. He trembled at the word of the Lord, fell down and said, “What must I do to be saved?” See, we knew he heard the message because he’s asking, “What do I got to do to correct my problem, to get saved from sin? What do I got to do?” And the word pierced his heart.

▶ 5:25 That embryo started, that seed started. He didn’t mock, he didn’t put it off. He let it bring forth that embryo fruit, the root starting and the fruit of salvation to be produced in his life. You got it? Acts 16:33: “The same hour of the night he was baptized in all his house, immediately, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.”

▶ 5:59 I was just in a nation not too long ago where they put off baptism for six months to a year, and I asked them, “Give me scripture for putting off baptism.” There is none. You repent and you what? Get baptized. How long did it take for the jail keeper to get baptized in water? The same night. You see why? Because baptism is not a ceremony, which I heard recently, an outward sign of an inward work. That is not in the Bible. You cannot show me that statement in the Bible. It’s just something we hear and we hold on to it and we repeat it without really checking in the Bible. Baptism is putting to death of the old man of sin and coming up a new creature, and people need to know this stuff before they’re baptized so that they can experience baptism for what it’s for.

▶ 7:02 Can I hear an amen? And a lot of people have been robbed of a great experience in water baptism because it’s an outward sign of an inward work, we’re just going through a ceremony, it’s just a ritual, there’s nothing in it. There is something in it. When you put to death the old man, there’s something powerful happening, and when you rise up a new creature that’s committed to righteousness, that is a tremendous work of God, and God chose water baptism to do that.

▶ 7:38 Now we’re going to go to the old Sunday school lesson of the parable of the sower. The seeds fell on four different kinds of ground, four different kinds of hearers. This helps us to understand the embryo growth, the embryo, that initial inward growth of God. All right, the seed fell on the wayside here, or it fell on hard minds, okay. Their minds were hardened. They hear, then comes the Devil and takes away the word. They mocked, they put it off, see, like we already heard, “lest they should believe and be saved.” They never get to the believing stage, that never brings forth the fruit of trusting God. Believe is to trust. All right, that’s the first one. They’re hard-hearted, they’re hard-headed, they’re hard-minded, and they mock and they don’t listen to the word of God. The second one fell upon the rocks. They’re the skeptical ones, the doubters.

▶ 8:48 They hear and receive the word with joy, but they have no root. And who’s the root? Jesus Christ is the root and offspring of David. They have no root in themselves, and in time of temptation they fall away. You see, time of testing they fall away. Now, a lot of churches preach that Christians don’t go through testing. Show me in the Bible. And no, don’t just preach stuff, show me, because I can show you from Adam to John the Revelator testings, and you’re going to go through testings, all right. They fall away. What do they fall away from? The only thing they had. What did they have? Belief. They fall away from the belief. Okay, and oh, these are the, I call them shooting stars. They get saved and they put on these great things. “Oh yeah, man, oh what, you know, I was in drugs and I was a prostitute and all this stuff and man, I got saved, Jesus saved me and old man,” and then poof, they’re gone, because there’s no root.

▶ 10:10 The root can’t grow on rocks. The rocks are too hard, it can’t find a place to get into the soil and bring forth fruit. Number three, they fell among thorns. These people hear the word of God and they go forth and are choked. They go forth, they go out into the world, they live their life (and all of us have got to go out into the world and live our life), and they’re choked with the cares and the riches and pleasures of this life and bring no fruit to perfection or maturity. They got a little bit of faith, see, they got a little bit of grace, got a little bit of, you know, belief, but never brings it to maturity where it really can be seen in their life. And this is the embryo again. See, the embryo is not growing right. That inner seed is not growing right.

▶ 11:15 And then some fell on good ground. These are they that hear the word in an honest and good heart. They’re not hiding any sins, they’re not hiding any pride, they’re not hiding anything. They have an honest heart. If they make a mistake, they admit it, and their heart, their mind is set to do good. You see, they repented because they were doing bad things, and they have a goal to do good things, and so out of that kind of mind, out of that kind of an emotion, the embryo seed can grow, get root and produce fruit. See, and they heard the word, they keep the word. They actually keep the word. They don’t just talk about faith and grace, they keep the word. Every word that they heard, they set a goal to keep.

▶ 12:19 Isn’t that beautiful? And how many you know there’s more word in the Bible than just saved by grace through faith. That is the initial foundation that you must get started on, but there’s a lot of word seed. All of you, I’m sure, enjoy different vegetables, not just wheat. You don’t go through life just eating wheat all the time. You throw a little corn, beans in there, and potatoes and rice, and so it is in the word of God. There are many seeds of the word, and you need them all for nourishment. Wow, that was good. Did you guys get that? We can’t stop at grace and faith or water baptism. Okay, and they bring forth fruit with what? What’s that magic word? Patience. You know, they don’t give up because they’re not there yet. They don’t quit because they haven’t bridled the tongue yet. They don’t quit because they haven’t bridled their temper yet.

▶ 13:27 They don’t quit because, you know, they haven’t figured out what the Holy Ghost baptism is all about. They don’t quit because they don’t know which way Christ is coming: [unclear] post-trib, mid-trib, [unclear] millennium, postmillennium, premillennium. You know, they don’t quit and give up, they just keep growing. They have patience for God to reveal to them the truth, and that’s the only way you’re going to get it anyway. There is no preacher that has the power to open your spiritual man to understand the word. Only the Holy Ghost can do that.

▶ 14:06 We’re going to look at people that abort the word and their reaction, their behavior. All right, these are people that are in the Bible that aborted the word. We’re going to Acts. We’ll start with Acts 5:33: “When they heard, they were cut to the heart and took counsel to slay” Peter and the apostles who spoke the word. See, they not only mock, they don’t even put it off for another day, they not only mock but they want to physically address the issue. And you got to understand why these people are the way they are. They aborted the word. The word came, they killed it, just like a baby. This baby has been killed and aborted by a saline solution. They just burn the baby to death. And this is what people do with the word. They just kill it, and then when they kill it, their outward behavior is to try to shut up anybody that’s speaking the truth of God’s word.

▶ 15:39 Acts 7:54: “When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth” and stoned Stephen. You see, again, they aborted the word. He gave them a tremendous word. As you know, one of the greatest sermons ever. You talking about me preaching from Genesis to Revelation, this guy covered half of the Old Testament in one sermon, and instead of them going, “Yay for Jesus, yay for truth,” they aborted the word. The Bible says they put their hands over their ears, they hated it, and they stoned Stephen. Acts 24:5: as Paul reasoned to Felix, the civil leader, as he reasoned, that’s him preaching the word, he’s talking the word, he reasoned of righteousness, temperance or self-control, and the judgment to come. He said there’s a coming judgment if you don’t control yourself and do what’s right, and the word caused Felix to what?

▶ 16:52 Tremble. I’ve told you before, I have witnessed to atheists. Atheists say, “You cannot prove there’s a God.” I tell them, “I can prove there’s a God.” They go, “Oh no, you can’t.” I said, “Oh yes, I can.” And I said, “If you obey the principles of this book, you admit you’re sinners, you ask Jesus to forgive you your sins, and you will find God showing up and making himself real.” And so they go through the motions, okay, and those of course, they don’t know how to pray, so I’ll say, “You know, just follow my prayer, just repeat after me,” and man, you know, I bring out the sin, and I’m specific with the sins, and they’re speaking, “I’m over there arrogant,” and all this stuff. Oh yeah, yeah. And then I asked them to ask Jesus to cleanse them for these sins, and man, when they start saying that part, they start shaking.

▶ 17:52 They don’t want it to be real. They don’t want this presence to be there, and so they resisted. And this is what people in the baptized in the Holy Ghost do. The reason they shake is because they don’t know how to release the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and I was a shaker until I learned how to channel it. You know, this power comes on you and you go, “My goodness, whoa.” You like it but you’re afraid of it, and you kind of, oo. And this is what the atheists did. They tremble, and then they let go of my hand, “We got to get out of here.” And Mr. Barnes has been with me at least twice when I’ve done that, haven’t you? See, God honors his word. God shows up. Don’t tell me I can’t prove there’s a God. God will honor his word. Hallelujah.

▶ 18:49 And so then Felix said, “At a convenient time I will call for you.” So what did he do? He aborted the word after he shook and he trembled and he heard it all and he knew it was real. He didn’t want it, and so he aborted it, just like people abort babies today. They don’t want them, they’re inconvenient, and they abort them. So do people abort the word of God. Acts 26:27: now this is really good. This is a grip of the second. And Paul is talking to him, and see, for us to go to civil leaders is Bible. These people that believe that Satan’s in charge of the governments, and leave them alone, there’s nothing we can do. Satan’s a liar. He lied to Jesus, of all people. Jesus was the head of the nations, he is the King of kings and Lord of lords.

▶ 19:48 And they say, you know, don’t get involved with the, well, these apostles and Jesus himself went to civil leaders, including John the Baptist, and preached the gospel to them. Can I hear an amen? And we cannot hide our head in the sand and just complain about our government. We got to get out there and speak the truth and the righteousness of God. And so Paul says, “Agrippa, I know that you believe the Scriptures.” Oh man, these people that are talking about once saved, always saved, and you know, we got a problem here. Agrippa was a believer. A believer. Was Paul lying? No. Paul said, “I know, King [unclear], you believe the prophets. I know you do.” And Agrippa said to Paul, “Almost you persuade me to be a Christian.” Almost. But what did he do? He aborted the word. And so his belief did not save him, because it didn’t bring forth the fruit to what?

▶ 21:06 Follow. We have been taught so many things that are just not scriptural. Christian: the suffix “ian” means to come from, belong to, or to follow what precedes it. See, I come from, if I’m a Christian, I come from Christ, he birthed me. Okay, if I’m a Christian, I belong to Christ. You see, I’m part of the family of God. If I am a Christian, I follow Christ. Not the preacher, not the pope, not the rabbi. I follow Christ. Why? Because I’m a Christian. I don’t follow a Protestant denomination. Why? I’m a Christian. I follow Christ. See, people say, “I’m a Christian,” when they’re really saying, “I’m a Baptist,” or “I’m a Methodist,” or “I’m a Pentecostal.” Why? Because that’s what they follow, and if their church follows error, they follow error with their church. But a Christian follows Christ, period. Amen. See, I can be a Pentecostal, I can be a Baptist, I can be a Methodist, I can be a Catholic and follow Christ.

▶ 22:28 That makes the difference. Agrippa was already persuaded to be a believer, but he wouldn’t be a Christian. He did not want to give up things to be a follower of Christ. Though he believed, he would not follow.

▶ 22:48 John 16:1: “Don’t be offended.” Jesus said, “They’ll put you out of the synagogues.” They’ll put you out of the church. “Yes, the time comes that whosoever kills shall will think that he does God of service.” When they abuse you, they think they’re obeying God. Back there in 1968, when God poured out the Holy Ghost upon all the denominations, as permission of no one, the denominations kicked them out. Instead of working with the tongue problem, working with the manifestations and getting them in order, they just kick them out. The Baptist kicked them out, the [unclear] has kicked them out, you know, the Lutheran kicked them out, and God just came to everyone: Catholics. The Catholics kicked them out, and then the thing got so big that the Catholics said, “Oh wait a minute, we made a mistake here. You guys can have your meeting in the back room,” because the Catholics were going to lose millions of people.

▶ 23:50 And the Catholics were smarter than the Protestant churches. They said, “Hey, we don’t agree with this, but hey, go ahead, do your thing in the back room. Keep it out of the main sanctuary.” Are you there? You see, but not the Protestant: “You’re going to speak in tongues? Out you go. You’re going to shake and fall on the floor? Out you go. We’re not going to teach you, we’re not going to help you grow up, we’re not going to reach out to you, just out.” These people that abort the word and their reaction are in our day the homosexual activist, who, by the way, just admitted that they do have an agenda. They just admitted it yesterday, when they’ve been telling us there was no agenda, and we got it printed, we got it in print form from the seventies, and this is what the homosexual activist said: “We have purposed to remove all Bible churches and religions that oppose them.”

▶ 24:57 And now we’re about to succeed, because the Senate just passed a bill called the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that will force churches, Christian schools, Jews, Muslims, whatever religious group you’re in, you’re in, to accept homosexuality as it is or you will be breaking the law. And if the House passes it, and Republicans join the Senate to pass it, see, this is the fragile area we are on right now. In other words, they can go to any church with fifteen or more employees, and you cannot say, “The Bible says I can’t hire you.” You got to hire me. You cannot keep them out of the schools, you cannot keep them out of the church. And this they admitted yesterday was their agenda to begin with, to get rid of the Bible moral standards, and they’re so happy for this law that they kind of slipped and said it yesterday, and you can check me out, it’s in the news, it made the news, thank God. Usually they hide them.

▶ 26:18 These atheists, humanists, religionists (religionist is someone that puts their opinions above the Scripture), you see, when you put your opinions or your denomination’s opinions above Scripture, you are a religionist. Why? Because you are opposing truth. Liberals, also called progressives (they snuck in this, they used to call themselves progressives about thirty years ago, now they snuck that word back in again because liberalism become a bad word), progressive and liberalism is all the same thing. Hedonists, humanists, evolutionists and educators, they all call people who stand for the Bible names. They call us the extreme right, the religious right, they call us conservatives, they call us close-minded, they call us childish and ignorant and misguided, they call us haters, intolerant, racist, greedy, and the communist calls us the opium of the masses. They say our book is a book of faith (the Bible is a book of faith), a book of hate and a book of myths, not truth.

▶ 27:35 And they say it’s not a book of science, a book of knowledge. They say that prayer and speaking the Bible publicly offends non-believers. I mean, what kind of guy are you that [unclear] talking about Jesus dying and rising again from the dead, and there’s an eternal judgment, you get offended at that? You’re pretty wimpy, in my opinion. Matthew 24:9: “You shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.” Matthew 10:25: “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?” See, they’re going to call you names. They’re going to try and make you feel bad about being a real Christian and speaking Bible truth. Yeah, well, “you got no right to push your ideals off on me.” Oh, but you got your right through movies, through radio, through TV, through books, and getting out and having conferences and seminars and all the rest to propagate your ideas, but not, I don’t have that right?

▶ 28:49 How many you know that is discrimination? Yeah. And the Christian church is just silent on this issue. It’s sad. We are the majority of the people in America and we can’t unite around being it. It is sad that we’re losing this battle. See, God wants us to stand for creation over evolution. He wants us to stand for morality over homosexuality and adultery. He wants us to stand for Christian education, speaking truth in school instead of lies. He wants us to stand up for self-control over abortion control, or abortion on demand. All you got to do is use some self-control and you wouldn’t have to kill all these babies, isn’t that true?

▶ 29:39 We’ve got to grow in this embryo, this inner stage. You see, before this outward fruit’s going to come out, we got to grow in this inward stage to imitate Christ. Mark 4:26: “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow.” Okay, Luke 8:11 tells us the seed is the word of God. What’s the seed? The word of God, and it has to be spoken, it has to be preached. And the field, in Matthew 13:38, is the world. What’s the field? The seed is grown in the world, mankind. Say mankind. Mankind. See, we got to get the word out for people to hear it, whether they like it or not. Could that be an amen? Because that is essential to them changing. “For the earth yields crops by itself, first the blade, then the head, and after that the full grain of the head,” the mature fruit, just like the seed that was planted was.

▶ 30:45 “And when the grain ripens, immediately the harvest has come.” Ephesians 4:15: “Speak the truth in love, and you will grow up in all things unto him who is the head.” We grow up into all things unto who? Jesus. Not the pope, not Billy Graham, not [unclear] Roberts, not Joel [unclear], but we grow up into Christ. Not our denomination, not being an independent church or a denominate. We got to grow up into who? Jesus Christ. That’s the full grain, Jesus. He’s the seed that was planted. See, that inner growth is very important, and that’s why a lot of us don’t have outward growth, is because we haven’t dealt with the inward. Galatians 4:19: “I travailed in birth again until [unclear] be formed in you.” Okay, Baptist be formed in you? No. Pentecostal be formed in you? No. Folks, God isn’t out to form any denomination in us.

▶ 32:11 He’s out to form Christ in us. See, shape Christ in us. Christ starts as an inward embryo in our spiritual man, and we have to cultivate it, feed it for it to grow. Romans 8:29: “For whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed” (to imitate; the word conformed is imitate) “the image of his Son.” Now, is that clear? You see, we’re on a growing process.

▶ 32:48 Now see, the atheists pick on us because we are in growing processes. You know, we’re not there yet. We call ourselves Christians because we’re babies, but there are a lot of things we haven’t grown up in, and people attack us for not being a grown-up Christian. But if you know what stage you’re in, every stage of God’s growth to him is perfect. Amen. If you’re a baby, you’re a baby, there’s nothing wrong with that. We all got to be spiritual babies. If you’re just an embryo trying to break out and bring forth that seed of Christ and all that, there’s nothing wrong with that. You are birthing that seed, there’s nothing wrong with that. People can laugh at you, mock you if they want, but God looks at you and says that person is perfect. Why? Because they’re right where they’re supposed to be at this time.

▶ 33:48 Hallelujah. And so many Christians give up because the word isn’t made plain to them and they think it’s impossible. No, everywhere you’re at, God sees it as perfection. Why? Because that’s exactly where you should be. Let me ask you this. Would Christ abuse or mistreat and be cruel to children? No. Would Christ abuse their spouse, mistreat them? No. So what’s the problem with this divorce and these family problems in the church world? What is the problem? The embryo hasn’t been developed right. They are following a religion, a philosophy, an idea, instead of Christ. Do you see that? Yeah, they blame everything else, but the real problem is they have got to respond to that word in their spiritual man, because Christ would not do that. They wouldn’t handle snakes and drink poison to show their faith. Christ wouldn’t do that. Christ would not say, “Well, you’re sick, you can’t go to the doctor, or you don’t have faith.”

▶ 35:37 Would he? No. Jesus himself said, “They that are sick need a physician.” Yes, God can heal, but if he doesn’t, you better get to a doctor. Jesus himself said, if you’re sick you need a physician. So this is a lot in the Pentecostal areas. They just make us look stupid, these people with this nonsense. “Cut off your hand or pluck out your eye.” The Bible says, you know, better to pluck your hand off and pluck out your eye and let it, you cause you to sin. That is an allegory, idiot. Jesus never went around cutting off people’s hands. He didn’t go around plucking out people’s eyes, neither the apostles. You see, these are ignorant people that twist the Scriptures to their own destruction, which we already showed you, and you got to follow Christ. You got to realize that Christ would do certain things and wouldn’t do certain things, and when you’re doing things Christ wouldn’t do, that tells you you’re wrong. Amen.

▶ 36:59 Would Jesus work and provide for himself? Yeah. He wouldn’t take the bribe of welfare. Yes, welfare is a bribe. Welfare is a bribe to get you to lean towards a philosophy that is not necessarily healthy. Of the fifteen apostles that was chosen to be apostles, was there one of them on welfare? Were all of them successful career people, every one of them? Were? He never went to the widow in her mite. He never went to the beggar and said, “I’m going to make you an apostle.” In fact, the Bible says if you don’t provide for yourself in your own household, you’re worse than an unbeliever. And so welfare should be connected with work. If we’re going to give people money from the federal government, they’re going to take our taxes, then they should be out there picking strawberries, cleaning hotel rooms, doing something, so they have some self-respect.

▶ 38:37 They’re working for the, now, this is an unpopular message, but church, somebody has got to get this and move forward in America. Are you with me? Now, is there a time where people need help? Absolutely. Come on. I showed you the people in the thirties, that Great Depression with the dust bowl and all that. I’m not going to fault the government for going in there and helping them. Those people were destitute. No, they couldn’t find jobs. They needed some help to get through the problem. Amen. We just need to keep this stuff in control. All right.

▶ 39:33 Would Jesus approve of homosexuality? No. He doesn’t approve of adultery, fornication, pedophilia, he doesn’t approve of incest or anything, let alone homosexuality. Would Jesus remove himself from the affairs of the world, civil laws, justice, education, eternal life in the kingdom of God? Would he remove himself? No way. Why are American Christians removing themselves from the affairs of this nation? They need us involved with the right mentality. Can I hear an amen? See, we’re supposed to be in the image of his Son. Would Jesus ignore the poor? No. Did Jesus, is there any record in the Bible that Jesus gave to the poor? You’re looking at me, I got a question that stumped you. There is no Scripture. But he told us to help the poor. He didn’t make it a priority in his ministry, and the Bible says that a family’s supposed to take care of family.

▶ 41:01 Does that sound fair? You bring kids into this world, you take care of them, right? If something happens in your home, the family comes and they do what’s necessary to correct the problem. Then the church said, if there’s people without a family, then the church will help you. Now we know that’s reasonable help. All right. Would he ignore wrongly educated curriculum, curriculum that’s teaching lies? No. But the church is. Why? Because the embryo is missing. There’s many embryos, and that one is missing.

▶ 41:50 Here’s a growth test. You ready for a growth test? See which one you are. Do you mock Scripture, put it off for a convenient time? Do you believe, [unclear] temptation, the cares of this life, have some fruit? You tremble at the word and you’re growing into a Christian. Do you hate, harm, abuse Jesus, the Bible and growing Christians? And do you justify your opinions of Jesus, the Bible, the church and morals through criticism of the Bible, morals and growing Christians? See, you justify your own opinions by putting the truth down and they that follow it. All right, one, two, three, four. If you are number one, you’re an unborn, ungrowing fetus. If you are number two, a green, you are a born-again, probably a baby Christian, and there’s nothing wrong with being a baby Christian at all. Number three, the purple one: if you do this one, you aborted the Scripture stage, even if you believe.

▶ 43:17 You see, and the last one, if you justify your opinions, you have a defective birth. Okay, solution. You got some things now. You got some things in your life that hasn’t grown to fruitfulness yet. How many can raise your hand, say, “I got, I know”? Before you start putting these up, I got some things in my life. Okay, about twenty-five percent of us are honest. First Peter. What’s the solution? First Peter 1:23: “Being born again by the” what? Word of God. See, we’ve got to listen to that word. If we haven’t got wisdom, we need to listen to that word of wisdom. You see, if we haven’t repented, we need to listen to that word of repentance, belief and faith, water baptism, Holy Spirit baptism, baptism into the body as he sees fit, laying on of hands for impartation, healing, blessing, resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.

▶ 44:34 You see, all of these is a seed of the word, and you need all the seeds growing in your life to be a complete Christian. Are you with me? Let’s continue. Then we go over to Second Peter, and we find we add to our faith virtue, or good morals, justice. Should Christians stand for justice, for goodness, for right? Yes. That’s the “add to your faith virtue.” You say, we like to stay over here in the second coming, and oh, we argue and quarrel about water baptism and Holy Spirit baptism and baptism of the body. We haven’t even, we quarrel over those things, and those things the Bible says are kindergarten doctrines. They’re the first principles of God, they’re not deep stuff at all. Everybody thinks the second coming is deep. Yeah, you talk about the Holy Ghost, deep. No, the Bible says these are kindergarten, first grade doctrines, primary doctrines.

▶ 45:39 You got to go on to the character doctrines: virtue, good morals.

▶ 45:48 Knowledge, knowledge of the Scriptures. Jesus said, “You do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.” You see, we need to know the Scriptures. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” And we won’t give God one hour a day in the Bible and in prayer to get knowledge. It just floors me. He asked for one hour. One hour, sixty minutes, and we got time to watch everything on TV, we got time to play sports, we got time to hang glide, we got time to surf, we got time to do all this. “Oh, I’m so busy.” You’re busy satisfying your own agenda. God asks for one hour of your day and you’re not giving it to him. That’s how you grow to be good, that’s how you grow in knowledge. You got to be in the word and pray the word. Forget this “now I lay me down to sleep” stuff.

▶ 46:53 Pray the word. Self-control: we got to grow into controlling ourselves, and the reason we won’t give God one hour a day is we lack self-control. Patience. You see, now we’re climbing the ladder. I mean, these are big things. See, God has an organized structure. Self-control and patience are big fruits. Love your enemy. Love God, love the right believer. Jesus said, “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another.” I got to love myself, and I got to love my family, I got to love my wife, I got to love my kids, I can’t hurt them, and love is the goal. The high mark of the calling of God is to love God, love his word, love people, and do nothing to harm them. And we’re way down the ladder. Most of us are back here with these two, grace and faith. That’s as far as we go.

▶ 48:11 How many would raise your hand and say, “Lord, give me some more embryos”? If you don’t ask, you don’t get. Now, how many were raised? “Lord, I want more embryos. Yeah, I want them growing.” Listen now, how many will give him one hour a day to let that happen? Uh-huh. Now, now we’re getting somewhere.

▶ 48:32 Romans 1:17. You got to understand this now. You young ones, pay attention here. This is really good, because Satan really likes to get on you young ones, because the Bible says flee youthful lust. There’s certain lust of the flesh that youth have because they’re growing into adulthood. All right, “the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.” So what should my faith be doing? Bringing me into the righteous character of Christ, one seed at a time. Yes, I might not have self-control yet, but God said he’s going to reveal it as I respond to the previous doctrines. I will get that patience, I will get that self-control. Are you there? See, it’s a growing process. When I got saved in Pentecostal churches, man, they said if you got filled with the Holy Ghost, bang, your problems were over. I got filled with the Holy Ghost and bam, I had more problems.

▶ 49:45 I didn’t even know I had problems before he came along and shined light on them. Man, and I had to work through these things. There was no [unclear] power [unclear], man, just got me through some of these trials and tribulations and growth things. I had to work the work of faith, I had to pursue knowledge, I had to pursue Christ to get through them. 2 Corinthians 1:10: “Who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us, in whom we trust that he will still deliver us.” That great death is what? The wages of sin. He delivers us. See, but he is in the midst of delivering us, and tomorrow he’ll be there to still deliver you. Why? Because you need to grow, and you’re violating God’s inheritance, God’s commandments, in certain areas, and so you need deliverance on the way up to that top fruit of love.

▶ 51:07 I can’t make it more clear than that. And remember, every stage in God is perfect, but when you are a baby when you should be a child or a young adult in God, that’s the problem, as we will see as we pursue this. Are you with me? But we need to get the inner right. Okay, the word delivers us and sets us free from sin, sets us free to do right and obey truth.

▶ 51:39 Noah, Job and Daniel are mentioned in God’s hall of fame in Ezekiel 14:14, and what was the only thing that would save them from wars, earthquakes, plagues? Their righteousness. You got it? You got it. I can’t be saved because my mom and dad were righteous. I can’t be saved because the pope is righteous. I can’t be saved because Billy Graham is righteous. I got to be, I will be saved because I have been birthed in Christ and I’m growing in him, and I’m at the stage where I’m at, and God sees it as perfect and saves me so I can go on to the next stage. See, growth is a stage, there, steps. End-time prophets look at Israel, they look at acts of God, they look at wickedness, instead of the glorious church overcoming the gates of hell. The Bible says in Revelation that he’s coming and his bride has what?

▶ 53:05 Made herself ready. Ephesians says that he’s coming for a bride that is a glorious church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Are we there yet? No, we can’t even fellowship with people outside of our corral, our denomination, our beliefs. We’re not there. Are we destroying the gates of hell in America today as a corporate church? No way. The homosexuals, the atheists, everybody’s having free rein with us. You’re going to be sad that you were here this morning, because who much is given, much is required. Church, God has given this church a fantastic word, but if we don’t take it seriously and get it out to others and just live our life, grazing, kids, working a job, going through every day routine, we’re not going to help anybody. So I submit to you, we got to get the word out, and get them to hear the word and read the word.

▶ 54:31 That word will set people free, that word will heal people, but we can’t keep putting it off. We can’t just stay at this place where, “Oh boy, we got a word, hallelujah, that was a good message.” No, we’ve got to get a hunger and desire and a compelling to get it out to others. Could that be an amen? Printed word, audio word, video word, any word, we need to get it out, because it’s the word that sets us free, and who much is given, much is required, and we need to get this word out. We need to challenge. I’m ready to get on radio and TV and challenge the leaders of our day, both political and church leaders. They are wimps when they deny the truth of the Bible just to have a big congregation and a lavish lifestyle. That is wrong. We need to preach truth no matter if it takes everything, every possession we got.