This sermon emphasizes the importance of being born again to truly experience the kingdom of God. It highlights the need for a genuine transformation where Christ is birthed in individuals, leading to a desire to be in God's presence and a deep understanding of the fall and redemption. The message stresses that Christianity is not about religious rituals but about having a personal relationship with Christ and living in His kingdom of light and power.

The problem is they never saw the kingdom of God. I pastored a long time before I realized why you have to beg about half the church to come to church. You know you gotta mail them out, you got to call them on the phone, you got to plead with them to come to the house, they're gonna be absent if somebody isn't on them. It took me a long time to understand the problem. They have not been born again. It's not their nature. You know, Joe never had to send no postcard to get me to a bar. He knew I'd be there. Money wasn't gonna keep me out because he'd give me credit. He'd do something bad wrong if I wasn't there because that's my nature. I can tell you a man born again, he still says I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of God. Nobody ever had to beg me to go to church, anymore to have to beg me to go to bar. Just tell me where Christ is functioning. I'll be there on the front pew if you let me. I'm gonna be there. You see, we've got to come back to the reality. God dealt with me so strongly about you gotta go back to the basis. You can't build the kingdom of God on tariffs, folks. It won't work. They have to be born-again people. You cannot build this kingdom on people that do not have the kingdom in their lives. God took me back, made me to realize that before we ever ever move any further, we gotta come back to understand the greatness of that fall and the greatness of this redemption. That is the roots of Christianity and unless you have roots, you bear no fruit. A tree can't live without roots and you've got to understand, you hear me, the depth of that fall. God said in the beginning, let us make man in our image. God made Adam and mirrored in that man, you could see the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. In the fall, that was what was lost and a man is never born again until there's a birth of that Son in that life, until God can see again in that life the mirror of Himself. There is no birth without that, ladies and gentlemen. We don't believe in Darwinian evolution, but we sure taught it in the Pentecostal Church. We've made men believe that they could grow and be educated into this life. You don't grow into life when biogenesis become a bona fide scientific fact, there ought to never been another mention of evolution on this planet. That just said life comes from life. It don't just happen, life only comes from life. We've turned the Sunday school around. I know I'm talking about the sacred cow at this point. I'm a believer in much it's become today, because it's no longer teaching new creatures how to walk with God, it's teaching ungodly people how to be religious without ever coming to know the Lord Jesus. I preached one Sunday night, I preached on a born-again believer or a product of a religious system, and in that message, this has been 30, 40 years ago, and right here in this church, I preached. I said, we in the assemblies of God have young men who are pastors in a pulpit, came up through the Sunday school, the CA department, and now preachers and have never been born again. Oh, I thought that night is difficult. Oh, Brother Graham was our superintendent at that time, very, very great man, godly man. Always for 40-something years, I've had this prayer meeting every morning at five o'clock. God dealt with me about seeking him early, and once in a while, he'd drive from Houston over. Well, that Sunday, that Monday morning, after I preached that message, I heard that old gravel voice somewhere in there, and I knew the superintendent had come to pray with me. He was a great man of God. We always had breakfast walking across the parking lot. I said to him, Brother Graham, I preached something last night, and maybe I pushed the button too far, stretched the band too wide, and I told him what I said. He said, if you had to deal with what I have to deal with, that calls himself preacher, with the adultery, the immorality, you know you can't preach it too far. I'm telling you folks, you don't grow into this. You're born into this kingdom, and they're never going to be a revival till we bring it back. The greatness of that redemption. Christ must be birthed in that human being, and if that Christ is birthed in him, then the house of God is a wonderful place, and the church of God is the body of Christ in the place that we want to come and want to be. The kingdom of God, what is it? Jesus told a certain group of people that some of them would not see death until they saw that kingdom come in power. Looking back now, I know, you know, he was talking about the day of Pentecost. When that wind blew through that upper room, heaven came into the hearts of men and women. The kingdom came in power on the day of Pentecost. When the wind blew through that upper room, then the kingdom of God took up its residence in the heart of a human. It's not meat and drink, but Jesus said, joy, peace, and righteousness in the Holy Ghost. Again, he said, the kingdom of God cometh not with observation, that is with the physical eye, but the kingdom of God is within us, and if that kingdom is within you, then you know it's there. Years ago, a man called me from Houston, and he said, Pastor, I watch you on television. I'd like to come to Beaumont and talk to you. I need some counseling. I said, well, that's fine. It's an hour drive. You're already on the phone. Maybe I can help you now. What do you want to talk about? He said, well, I want to see if you think I have the Holy Spirit. I said, no, you don't. I said, such discernment. I said, I didn't know discernment, sir. The God that inhabits eternity can't live in a man without a man knowing that. You may be here, somebody taught you a little prayer language. They lied to you, mister. The miracle wasn't that I talked in tongues. The miracle was he lived in and gave me something to say. I've watched him reduce this great. I watched such a ecumenical thing as it spread back in the 60s, just old and dead religious bodies joining themselves together for some kind of a political reason. I said to the folks here in this church, I said there's no harm in that. There's nothing to it whatsoever, but the day it takes on a Pentecostal context, it'll go straight to demonism. I've watched it, mister. Let me tell you something. This don't mix with anything. Christianity is not an accretion of everything. It is Christ. I said it is Christ. It is Christ, Jesus the Lord. This kingdom in a man separates him from whatever there is of this earth. You don't mix Baal and Christ, mister. There is no mixture. It's Christ and Christ alone that's a savior of us all. Hallelujah to God. Jesus on this earth, he talked much about a kingdom outside of this one. He talked about a kingdom of darkness where disembodied spirits dwell, where demons walk to destroy and disturb man, but he also spoke of a kingdom of light and power where God and angels live and invited me to walk in that kingdom. Oh, if I could run, I'd do it now. I said he invited me to walk in that kingdom. He told me about a world where God was real, where angels walk, where miracles happen, where it's common place with God. I'm talking about the kingdom of God. Oh, yes. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. A kingdom in which the church was to move and live. That's what he said. You're to demonstrate on this planet what heaven's all about. The Bible said the Word of God is forever settled in heaven, and then Jesus come along and said whatever settled up there, I want it to happen down here. Your prayer must be thy kingdom come.