In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of the Bible and its significance in the lives of believers. They suggest that if scientists were to embrace the teachings of the Bible, they would become wonderful people instead of trying to destroy its message. The speaker also highlights the eternal existence of individuals and the choices they make in life. They urge listeners to pay attention to the direction their lives are taking and to consider their true identity and purpose in God's eyes. The sermon references the verse in John 10:27-28, where Jesus states that his sheep hear his voice and follow him, emphasizing the importance of listening to God's guidance.

Let's turn to the subject of the Daily Lament or Prayer first. Father, how wonderful it is that we can gather into thy presence, Lord, away from all other things, that they should be shut out. And we, Lord, should be shut in with thee, that thy grace may work, that thy Spirit shall bring out all truth that we need at this moment, knowing that thou hast guaranteed to us that we shall keep on entering into truth, that our finite minds may be taught of thy eternal Spirit and be prepared for eternal dwelling with thee. Lord, we glorify thee. We want nothing else but to serve and love thee, know thee more intimately, and lose all carnality, and go on with thyself, indeed being members of thy flock. We glorify thee, dear Lord. We do indeed, that our finite minds grasp little by little the great things of the eternal God, and prepared, Lord, to dwell in thy presence and with thee forever and forever. Take away our coarseness, our vulgarity. Take away all those things, Lord, that do not at this moment harmonize with the heaven and the very heaven of heavens in which we shall dwell with thee forever. Discipline us, Lord, as thy sons above angels, and grant unto us, Lord, thy great love coming to us as grace. Move us, Lord, take us away from being our mere selves. We ask thee, Lord, make us like that only real self that you had in mind. In looking at thy son, Father, thou didst see thyself. Make us like him, that we may live in the spirit, not in the flesh, desiring only to have his flesh and his blood, that we may, Lord, be changed into his likeness, and please thee, glorious Father, that thou hast accomplished thine almost impossible task, to make us just like Jesus, as near as we can be on this earth, ready to pass into that eternal world of heaven. We glory in thee, Lord. If you will pardon our ignorance and come again, Lord, to teach us and separate us in the truth from willful ignorance and neglect of thee just to develop our own personality. We thank thee, Father. We are not here to be ourselves in this world. We are here to be Jesus in the world. And we glory in thee, and thou dost even forgive the ignorance that science will have taught us to be a wonderful individual. Lord, we come as only one science. It is the knowledge of God. And we thank thee for this, Father. When all things else shall have gone, it will be thou and thy children. How we love thee. Unfold to us something of thy plan, Lord. Even this morning, show us again thy wonderful miracles of changing the inner man into the likeness of that man who the world hated and crucified, hoping to rid themselves of him. Impossible task as it is, for in the end, thou art. God, we should be like him, Father, just to please thy heart, forgetful of all self, so that we can live for thee as Jesus lived unto thee and for thee. Thank you. Glorious Lord. Amen. All right, let's go on. Chapter 10, isn't it? We couldn't finish it yesterday, could we? Today I want to take the rest of chapter 10 that I left yesterday because time is inexorable. And the whole of chapter 11. So let's go on, shall we? May I say this? Before we get into chapter 11, remember this. All of us must take this to heart. That Jesus had to learn. You see, in the beginning, he did the simplest of miracles. Turned water into wine. It didn't start off with raising somebody from the dead, which silly idea we get into our heads, or what we want to do. Jesus had to learn. He graduated in miracles. He didn't raise Lazarus from the dead. That was practically the last of his miracles. You know, he restored the ear to Marcus, whom Peter, in his foolishness, fleshly energy, or we all have it, or have had it. They tried to protect the Lord from what the Lord had really come to do, that is, die on the cross. He didn't want that. Most of us reason from the flesh, few reason from the Spirit. And then when we do, we start with a little thing. Jesus had to graduate as a man. Showing us the way. He said, I am the way. Keep our eyes on him. And not just drop on a particular verse, say in John 14, or something like that. It's better still to start at the beginning. Try turning water into wine, and then you may be trusted to raise someone from the dead. I'm not saying actually, I'm giving you the progress of Jesus Christ on earth. Swelled heads and big ideas come out of the pit that's in us. God has to cleanse everything out, not just take away sin, but this pit of the unknown self. Though most people think they know themselves. Let's go on, shall we? Then in John chapter 10. I finished up really in the 18th verse. No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power. It's the word authority, that word power. And I have authority to take it again. And this commandment have I received of my Father. All right, here we go. There was a division therefore again among the Jews through these sayings. Many of them said, he hath a devil that is mad. Why hear ye him? Others said, these are not the words of him that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind? And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication. And it was winter. It was the dedication of the temple. Herod's temple, not Solomon's. Keep that in mind. When, I suppose, with all his grandiose pomp and ceremony, Herod was nearly worshipped. But he built them a wonderful temple to worship God. And he got it all wrong. He was a wicked man. And all the Herods had a history, like the Borgias in history that we know of. And he built a division in the temple where the Gentiles could come and the Jews had this place. They also had great divisions between men and women. There was the court of the women and all these kinds. You should look at the plans sometime. You can. You used to have Bibles in my day. Of course you don't have Bibles like this now probably. I don't know. I don't look at the modern versions. The great thing is they would have a plan of the temple and plans of this and a map of this and a map of the other. And could be helpful. But Herod was a monster. Don't you think that? Pretending to be a God lover and a God worshipper. Beware of them. There are lots of them about today that they aren't called Herod. And he was walking then in Solomon's porch, verse 23, at the Feast of the Dedication. Let us pay honour to Herod. You see, that's where it was. Then came the Jews round about him and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not. The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness on me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep. That is a very pointed statement. You won't believe all that you should believe unless you're one of his sheep. Truth will raise complications in your mind because you're not heart led, you see. Beware of being a worshipper of your own mind and intellect. Be wary of it. Get to know the voice of God. Let's go on, shall we? We should see it all working out. And you believe not, verse 26, because ye are not of my sheep. That's it. Are you having trouble with believing this or believing that? You make sure you're one of his sheep first. Don't follow the state of your own mind. The state of mind follows the birth of the Spirit. And you have to be educated in that. It doesn't matter whether you get a university degree, not a lot. Not in heaven, it'll get you a better job and better income and all these kinds of things, but that's not it. Just remember this. Keep it in mind because we're being taught to worship our own minds. That's what's happening. We do what we want. We wear what clothes we want to wear. Of course that's very excellent, don't the film stars do that? We have to be conformed to Christ in that fifth gospel I was talking to you about. If Paul tells you that, Paul's gospel, you've got to be conformed to the very image of Christ in a man. You see his outer image in the Synoptic Gospels. They trace him from the manger right through to the cross. John ignores the manger part. He's trying to redirect the human mind into the true spiritual patterns of God. That's John's great commission on this earth. And the sooner you take that deeply into your heart, there's one thing God demands of every one of us is to be conformed. So don't run away from conformity. Conformed to the image of Christ. That's the big thing. Not the one we make up in our own mind, but the one that's been revealed in the Scripture. That's the image. We can be worshippers of images, chiefly ourselves. We've got to come into what God wants, beloved. The works that I do, and listen, he did not do them in his own name. Verse 25, I'm doing them in my Father's name. If my Father was on earth, he would do exactly what I am doing. The person that you call your God, he's talking to people, anybody that's got an ear to hear, he would only do exactly what you read about Jesus Christ in this book. That's all. Hallelujah. Isn't it wonderful that God should have a human birth on this earth. And indeed all because he wants to give you a new birth into his family. Isn't that glorious? How wonderful it is. All right. You believe not, he says, 26, because you are not of my sheep. I want to instance the thing, I don't want to overdo it in this, but there should be a full stop there. And the next letter should be A, capital A, the capitalized word. As I said unto you, my sheep hear my voice. Versification often, as well as tractorization, has ruined the flow of the truth. Here it is. As I said unto you, because he had said that, my sheep hear my voice. And I know them, and they follow me. Now, beloved, let me emphasize a point to you. I mean, I should have three whole years at least expounding this book. And you're all invited to come, of course, but I should love to do this. I once took three years in a group just studying the epistles of the Ephesians. Three years on Ephesians. Here is the thing. Listen. It's tremendous to get into the heart of God. For you do know, don't you, though you will nearly have been taught to worship your own brains, it's what comes out of your heart. Jesus puts the brain function, I mean the mind function rather than the brains. The brains are up here. They're only in machinery. He puts the origin of thought in the heart as a man thinketh in his heart. So is he. So is he. Oh, I'll honor you ladies and say, so is she. It's the same. Oh, beloved, never you be deceived by these modern teachers, however many letters they may have after their name. This is it. And you, if you say you are a child of God, are bound to believe it. This is the written word of God. Understand that. Hallelujah. Now this is what he said, And I, as I said unto you, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them, and I'm going to put only unto them, eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand. My Father, now you keep this indelibly in your mind. Never let this be erased. My Father gave them to me. Now that's what makes us so dear to Jesus. If we are truly one of his sheep, we're not like a great big bull rushing about. Certainly not like some brontosaurus or something. My Father gave them to me. Now if you say you belong to Jesus, you were given to Jesus by his Father. He had nothing but what his Father gave him. Gives him. It's not you tag along, I want to join this church, or I want to belong to that church, or I want, it's whether you, just think of yourself now, you know, you've known about yourself since your childhood, with a gradually growing understanding. All right. You didn't become a Christian, in the sense which you know I've become a Christian or something. This is the poor human way of thinking, and of course it has a degree of correctness. But you've got to get into the real truth of God, the eternal truth. Do you think you've been given to Jesus by the Father? Go on, think about yourself, and think about what an awful mammal we may have been. A tigress or a tiger, with all our tempers and tantrums and traumas. You see, given to him by his Father. And he repeats this very especially later in this Gospel, and he isn't talking about sheep as in general, he's talking about the man that God gave him, who he was going to turn into being the real apostles of Christ, after he had left the earth, to be Christ's. Not belonging to Christ. Leave out the apostrophe, to be little Christ's almost. Understand that. Like him. My Father gave him to me. That's what makes you precious to me. To hell. Wonderful. I mustn't stop. I always tend to preach on every verse actually. I'm sorry about that, it's my failing. Here then is the big thing. Oh, it's so lovely. They'll never perish. Never perish. Now, perishing has a certain significance, not that I can stay or have time to stay on all these lovely verses, but that word perishing, you know, take Jake John 3, 16, famous, most famous verse in the Bible I suppose, God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Now that word perish does not mean go to hell, or to the lake of fire. It's a very present word. It is being saved from perishing, wasting away your life on this earth. That's the exact Greek. It's a pity we can't all speak Greek, isn't it? And I don't know whether the translators who are bringing up these new versions except make it clear either. If you want to learn a language, you learn Greek. Classical Greek. Learn it. And the cold truth is this. You're wasting your life. You're wasting every minute of your life. Time was given by God. God, if I may say so, invented time. Man didn't. And don't you think we're going to pass out of time into eternity? You're deceived if you think that. And I was brought up on this, that when we get to heaven, no more time and no night there, and all these things seem to be based firmly on scripture. But there is time in heaven. And it's stated to you by this same man, John. This is why I love this man, John. He really got into the understanding of God's heart. Paul got into it with his great mind. He was the only one that went through university, by the way, Paul. All the rest, God seemed to prefer people that could only just about catch fish. He wasn't very interested in education. Here's the thing. It says, and the fruit of the tree, this is in Revelation, it says, it brings, the tree of life, brings forth its fruit every month. So there's time. Alright? Alright? It brings forth its fruit every month. So there is time in heaven. Let me digress a minute, but it's good for you and your future ministry to understand these things. Alright? It's much better for you to get an understanding of God and intrinsic truths and learn the Bible, because there won't be any Bibles in heaven. You understand that? They're simply paper, and they'll be burned up in the general fires. You've got to know the Word, which is Christ. Always understand this, that they say this is the Word of God, and it's not strictly speaking true, and you've got to learn to think strictly. They are the written Word of God. Now keep that clear. The Word of God is first, personal. Jesus Christ is the Word, which was made flesh. Secondly, the Word was spoken. Genesis 1, and here it is. And God said, let there be light. And there was light. And thirdly, it was written, and the Bible was begun so far as it's possible to trace it at the foot of Mount Sinai. It was not begun with Genesis. This is the order of creation in Genesis, but it was begun at Sinai. Alright? And you can read it, just keep on reading. Moses started to write, and he wrote the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch. He started his treatise, whatever you want to call it, at the foot of Sinai. Now that sets you hunting and thinking, doesn't it? Go ahead. Always remember that everything so far as God is concerned starts with being. I am. The only way for any one of us can say I am is because that is the great self-consciousness that creeps in. I am. I am a little boy or a little girl. And oh dear how terrible it is when everything in our world turns around the eye. I can think, therefore I am. But this isn't that kind of a lecture, is it? Let's go on. To see the glorious truth that God unfolds they shall never perish. That is, not waste their time and their substance. Never waste it. Because you've got to know that having been born into this world you can never, never cease to exist. Your body will. But you can't. Keep that clear. What you have to do is not waste your life. Waste it. Hear the words of the Lord Jesus in the parable in Luke. There that prodigal son wasted his substance. The real manhood of him. Not the fortune he brought from his dad. God so loved the world that he gave his only son who never wasted his substance. Who fashioned himself by grace upon the Father. And he was the image of the Father. All right. OK. There's much more in this Bible than you think. If the scientists of the world were to take this as their substance instead of trying to destroy it in people's hearts they would be wonderful people. Don't listen. You follow this. You cannot go out of existence. You can go out of this world out of this earth, away from this earth. But you will exist forever. Now whether you really only miserably exist or have eternal and wonderful being in the presence of God and life eternal is up to you entirely. Up to you. Watch your choices and especially watch the drift of your life. How old are you? Where are you now? I know we're all in this room. But where is this you that I can't see when I look at your body that has nothing to do with male or female either? You. Who are you? What are you? That's the thing that God's concerned about. And He sent His Son. I'm going back in John alright to that wonderful third verse 16th verse in the third chapter. It's the chapter in which He talks about new birth by the way. And never perish. I must not waste my time I must not waste my brains if I have any. I must not waste my personality if I have any. We've all got that. You must not waste it. You must not perish in any degree. We should not perish. What was I like at 12 when I was 12? What was I like when I was 10? Horrible little creature I suppose. I don't know. Can't remember. And what am I like now I'm 84? Wasted? Have I wasted opportunities? Life. God so loves He blots all that out. Yes, but He doesn't blot it out He intends you to blot out the rest that He's got for you. We're all concerned about going to heaven when we die. It's the last thing you want to be concerned about. It's pleasing God. Up to Him whether He takes you at 50 or whether He takes you at 80. That's up to Him. Sometimes I get vehement about this because I go to churches and all they're concerned with is going to heaven when they die. Let me tell you it's not good enough for you. He's going to make a new heaven for you. Told you so. Just keep it clear. Be sure only that you have heavenly states in your heart now. The greatest thing about all this you can talk all the other things is about saving you from yourself. That's right. You say well we're talking about sin. I wish preachers preached about self. We only have salvation because God is the self He is. I am who I am. I am what I am. Of course He forgives. That is love. But you friend, you in the presence of Jesus Christ. I'm getting away from John but let me take the point one step further. Paul wrote to the two books of Thessalonians. In the first one he says this What is my glory or my crown you in the presence of Jesus Christ. That was his crown. He never let a moment of his life perish. He invested it in souls. I mean his eternal life. That's the thing. He wasn't looking for a golden crown. All the hypnologies that stray on it. Most of it. The crown of Jesus is you and I. In his presence. That's his crowning glory. That he could come to earth and take the sin of the world and take the hatred of mankind personified in those Romans and Jews of his time and present you spotless and wonderful a proper human being as God intended. In his presence. That's his crown. We are his crown. God doesn't invest in gold. Dirty stuff that has to be dug out of the earth. And men idolize it. Here's the thing beloved. It's you. Get it in you. Into your heart. And mind your own business. And don't apply yourself to trying to mind other bodies business. Unless you would be called like Peter calls you. Don't be a busy body in other men's matters. Just be a slave of God. What a concept. Because that's all Jesus was. And because he would be a slave of God. You say he was a son of God. Of course. You can't be a slave of God until you're a son of God. He enslaved himself voluntarily. Listen. Twelve years of age. I must be about my father's business. I am among you as he that serveth. Everybody wants to be lord. Don't they? Oh, not you of course. But you know what I mean. Everything is. Before you'll ever be a good salesman for instance. I'll talk to you. You'll be on there. Everybody wants to be a good salesman. Knows this. That they've got to sell themselves before they sell their commodities. Watch it. The Bible goes across the teachings of all modern psychology. So don't get. Oh, yeah. Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, let's go on with our subject, shall we? Look at this. It's nearly my tea time. Perhaps I'm wasting my time. Let's go on. Here is the thing. I give unto them eternal life. And they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me is greater than all. And no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I am my Father alone. And what was the reaction immediately? They threw up stones for stoning. Now you've got to be one with the Father. One with the Son. One with the Holy Ghost. Not try and force your ideas on them. You can't be a Christian and a witness unless you know. You must be a martyr. The Greek word translated witness is martyr. Oh, oh. They've already laid down their life, their career, their everything else, all their hopes. Perhaps their mother and father's hopes for them. Yes, they're not based on the scripture. Dead to the world and all its toys, its idle pomp and fading joys. Jesus my glory be. I guess if I asked you who wrote that, nobody would be able to tell me. You won't find it in the world's literature. You must study to be approved unto God. That's Paul to Timothy. A vessel unto honour, fit for the Master's use. What high ideals. But with Paul it was a reality, not merely an ideal. You see, beloved, this is your gospel to which you have been called. First to live it and then to preach it. This is marvellous. And my father won. They took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you from my father. He never hatched them up in his own mind. He showed them from the Father. For which of these works do you stone me? The Jews answered him saying, For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy. And because thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said ye are gods? Fancy God having that written in the Bible. I said ye are gods. If he called them gods, out of whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken, Say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, thou blasphemest. Because I said, I am the Son of God. Really, do you think God would ever have it written about you? I said you are a God. Oh, not someone that he worships. But I've raised, I've elevated you to the place of the earth. That's how I've looked upon you. My chosen people. And when the Father looks upon you, he's got to see his Son in you. If he can't see him, you don't belong. I took this many years ago, by God's grace, into my own thinking. You must. Not to take the place of God, but being in his likeness. And remember to whom he was speaking, people who got hooked up in idolatry, but they were still his chosen people. How many of God's chosen people are idolaters today? I don't know. How much time do you spend in front of the mirror, for instance, looking at yourself? I should advise everybody to have a little look now and again. But here is the main thing, beloved. What an elevation. Moves from calling people his sheep, and the next time he said, I said you were God's. God's coming. I love the old Quaker saying, that when they spoke about being baptised in the Spirit, what we would say today, they never spoke of it as being baptised in the Spirit. Do you know how they spoke of it? You should read some of the early Quaker literature. They called it being Godded with God, and Christed with Christ. We say, he's baptised in the Spirit. Yes, it's right, it's biblical. But you see how they saw it? Being Godded with God. God gives you God through God. Through God the Son, God the Father will give you God the Holy Ghost. How can you live any other way than living just exactly like that? That's what it's about. Christ never gave himself for any other reason but to produce sons in the image of the Son. Paul's gospel called Romans. Have you read it? That's what it's all about, beloved. It isn't to make you happy or anything like that. It's to make you in his own image. Not that you should go in for self-worship, but to be like Jesus. They taught me that when I was a child going to Sunday school years ago. It didn't mean anything. I just sang a chorus. How marvellous it is. Now let me hurry, because I want to get into chapter 11. I mean, I've got a commission on, well, self-made one. Derek doesn't care whether I get through one chapter or two, three, four. Here we go. And this is very, very important. Now keep this in mind. And carry it forward to chapter 11 when we come together again. If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. I invite you not to believe me. But if I do, though you believe not me, believe the works that you may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in him. Therefore they sought again to take him, but he escaped out of their hand and went away. Beyond Jordan is a place where John at first baptized, and there he abode. Many resorted unto him and said, John did no miracle, but all things that John spake of this man were true. And many believed on him there. Amen. We'll come together in about five minutes, beloved.