In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the unity and glory of humanity and God, highlighting that humans were made in God's image. The preacher also discusses the concept of sin and its consequences, explaining that God implemented a remedy for sin through the principle of heredity. The preacher warns against neglecting the Bible in favor of charismatic experiences, emphasizing the importance of studying and loving the Word of God. The sermon concludes with a focus on Jesus as the true vine and the importance of obedience and bearing fruit as branches connected to Him.

All right, now let's go to the Scriptures, shall we, beloved? And I would think this afternoon we should start in Jeremiah. And you will know that this particular chapter that I am going to read, or the part of it, is really the sort of main theme of the epistle to the Hebrews, really, or at least it's the sort of basis of the epistle to the Hebrews. Jeremiah 31, 27. It's a marvellous thing. Now I want you to notice the consistency of Scripture. Please don't get tired of hearing me say this. I want you, and God wants us all, to love this book. Because you see, beloved, if we're not careful, there is a certain kind of a move afoot that goes with what might be called the charismatic movement. I don't know why they should call it this phrase. In a few years' time they'll have another gimmicky phrase to use. But, you know, what we do, we all come together, we only praise, and we use our gifts. We have body ministry. We get little snippets and waffles of nothing. And the Bible, if we're not careful, is being put aside. As though, oh, you know, that's bondage, and we don't have that. And, of course, as soon as you get that, you find all the other things that the Bible says you mustn't do are also set aside as bondages. And away people go off the ground of truth. The only right mixture in this realm is the gifts of ministries, the gifts of an availability for everybody to minister, and the solid, glorious exposition of this book. Somebody said to me, because this has passed in between lunch and now, somebody was speaking to me along this line. If you will pardon me making reference to this, but please excuse me if I do, but it was sort of a reference to the way the meeting ended up this morning. What a precious meeting that was, beloved. Hallelujah. This morning, wasn't it? Wonderful. Glory be to God. I thought it, and God came, and, you know, and I got away in prayer. And somebody commented on this, you see. And I said to that person, now, that's what it all began with. In a city called Bradford, where God visited us as a little company of people. It was that. And all the revival and all the power, or whatever you want to call it, that came, and in which, by God's grace, I've been privileged to move since. It was about the solid exposition of the Word and that kind of praying. I haven't spoke to my wife since, but if I said to her, dear, did that remind you of Bradford? That's right. Oh, God used to come on us and we would, everything, the flesh is rent to see, and then the heavens are rent, and everything happens. It was combined with hours and hours of exposition of the Book. It didn't come by body ministry. It came by, I'm only telling you what I know came from that. And we'll forsake our heritage if we get off at that. Hallelujah. So, I want you, and God wants you, to love this Book and notice its marvellous, inherent truth. All right? In Jeremiah 31, 26, do you read that verse? It came out of sleep. Where did Eve come from? Sleep. Adam slept. Now, here's the sleep. Now, what's coming next? You must read the chapter if you want to. We haven't got time. Here it is. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord. I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of beast. It shall come to pass that like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to throw down and to destroy and to afflict, so will I watch over them to build and to plant, saith the Lord. In those days they shall say no more. The fathers have eaten the sour grape and the children's teeth are set on edge. Everyone shall die for his own iniquity. Every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord. I'll make a new covenant. That's where it came from, the great new covenant. From the sleep, you notice, came after the sleep. Every time. You see, there's an inward consistency. God never deviates. And I would like to say a word here to ministering brethren. Be careful how you use the typology and the pictures of the scripture. You must not take them out of their scripturally consistent use. You must always hold them true, unless the greater, deeper truths, by far the greater and deeper truths, will never be unfolded to those that listen to you. Although you may adapt it to something you want to say, you must let it mean what it means in scripture, and then the deeper thing that at present is hidden from them, they will come to realize when they see how the thing inheres, and it consists everywhere, and it always is unfolding one invariable truth. Here we have, as you see, a glorious secret, just to notice that. And what you must do when you get these things is let them burn in you until your whole self takes fire on the thing that the Lord is revealing to you. Then you'll be a preacher. Whilst I was musing, the fire burned. I went forth and spoke. That's David. Anybody who speaks from anything other than fire ministereth death. In those days they shall say no more. The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth shall be set on edge. Listen to it. This great law of heredity that Freud got hold of, you see, it was enunciated by God. Everyone shall die for his own iniquity. Every man that eateth a sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they break, although I was a husband unto them, saith the Lord. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and will be their God and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me. From the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord, and I will remember their sin no more. I mentioned earlier that the writer to the Hebrews took this up and applied it in the eighth chapter. We won't turn to it at the moment. I hope that you will retain it in your mind or write it on a bit of paper that you've got there if you need to or if you've got a good reference Bible, it will give it to you anyway. And this then is the whole truth that God's making a new covenant. It has nothing to do with a covenant wherein a principle of heredity has been outworked. That fathers eat sour grapes and that children's teeth are set on edge. This, beloved, is a tremendous law of heredity that operates. And when God gave the old covenant, the ten commandments, you remember that one of the things he said was this, that he would visit the sins of the fathers unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. Amen. The law of heredity was intended by God. It went wrong at the fall. All right. And the principle of heredity is inherent in the human race and cannot be stopped. God intended it to be that way. Think of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. It is said of Jesus, going back to Hebrews or going on to Hebrews, what you've got to do is to get a Bible that automatically opens at the right places. You see, my Bible automatically opened at Hebrews. And it's a new one too. And I'll let you into a secret. Listen, I'll share a secret with you. When I was in India, some people thought that to have my Bible and my testament would be about the biggest thing I could bequeath to them. So I left my Bible and my testament in India and came home naked of the Word of God and nearly that anyway in clothes. I left a lot of those behind too. And I get home to England, you see, and I haven't got a Bible. I go to a place called the Long Cross. You've never heard of the Long Cross, I'm sure. I went to the Long Cross. And I sat talking to a friend whose name is Norman Meaton. And I was just passing on this, you know. I've got to get a new Bible. I want to get a new, new testament. Oh, he says, here, it's here for you, brother. And he went out and he pulled out this marvellous book. He knows the Bibles I like. He likes them too. Now, he was a heathen. He started on other sorts. God converted him. And he pulled this out, and I knew perfectly well all about it, but I didn't say anything because we've operated on this principle before, you see. He goes inside, pulls out this Bible, and gives it to me, you see. But you can't do anything like that with God. He's hardly given it to me when somebody else gave him one. That's the way it is. This is a principle. So we've got twin Bibles. We're twin spirits anyway. And we nearly talk alike, from what I heard him preaching last night, and so on. But here, then, is the glorious secret. Already, you see, this Bible knows its way around, and it opens at the right places. Hebrews 1. God. I often say, if you want to know the author to the Hebrews, it's the first word. God wrote the epistle to the Hebrews. In Bible colleges, they can't make up their minds who did. But it tells you, if you'll read it, God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us, in a son, actually, is the Greek. He's spoken to us, really, in sonship, by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds, or fitted the ages together. Tremendous. Who, being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his character, substance, person. You see, the Son, inherited from the Father. He was the exact expression of the Father's character and substance. Amen. So that when he was on earth, you remember, he said, when they said, Oh, show us the Father. It will be sufficient for us. Let's see this Father you keep talking about. He said, Well, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. This is it. We are one. Spiritual identity. Substantial union. Glory. And this, then, is the marvellous thing. And God intended it, because it was so in the Godhead. So it is in humanity. He made sin his own image. Now, when sin had run its course down through the centuries, till the time the law was written, God enshrined, he gathered together the principles of heredity, that have to do with the constitution and make-up of a being, and he brought it into the punitive element. And he said, I will visit. I will do this about the iniquity of the Fathers. I'll do it upon the children, and to the third and fourth generation. You see. But it is the heredity side which is the truth about the Father eating the sour grape, and it's the children's image, these teeth of a set-on edge. That's on the heredity side. So far as the legal side is concerned, God, using the principle of heredity, made the punishment, if you like, ride upon the principle. Have you got that? I want to be very careful, because somebody said to me yesterday afternoon, they hadn't been able to sort of get through on some of the things I'd been saying. I notice that person isn't here this afternoon. I don't blame her. But this is because you really need a fortnight or a month of afternoons, and one tries to compress so much into so little, and we come to the principle of multum in power. We've got to get much in little, in these tremendous things. And God made this thing. He wasn't being spiteful, saying, well, I'll visit the sins of the fathers, the third and fourth generation are there, poor unborn children, blah, blah, blah. You see, but God was merely following natural law, and he made his law move upon this basis. Obviously, it's the sort of thing it would do. Really, when you come to see it. But he said he would show mercy out of thousands of them that love him and keep his commandments, you see. And now it's upon this principle of heredity that so much in humankind can be understood. For instance, how much disease used to, if not so much now, travels along this line of heredity. Take the days when tuberculosis was rampant in England. Well, if the parents had tuberculosis, so did the children. They just inherited the weakness that was open, sometimes born with a tubercle in them. I'm not a medical man. I shall have to get Brother John here to expound on this. But I do travel with medical men, and I had one for six months in India, and I sucked his brains a good bit. He sucked mine on other... Oh, he sucked my spirit probably more than my brains. But you know what I mean. I've got no brains at all. I leave that to my university friends. The whole business about that, beloved, is that you see it, amen, and it works out. And not only that, but you see character quirks working out. That's right. How often have I dealt with ladies, perhaps. I don't know. Suddenly, I see a lot of ladies coming to me. I think they seem as a bit of a father figure, with my white hair and my long nose and all sorts of things like that, and so on. And I say to them, did your mother used to have depressions to love like you? They say, oh yeah, yeah. You see? And I say to them, these sort of troubles, was it your mum or was it your dad that used to sort of get these things? Oh, it was my mother. Yeah, she used to be like that. Oh, and my grandmother. I can remember my grandmother, you see. And away it goes then. And this great law of heredity is working, that parents eat the sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. Now, nobody's going to die because their teeth are set on edge, but they're suffering because of the sour grapes that have been eaten and gone down into the belly. If you think I'm going to get vulgar here, well, you'll just have to put up with my vulgarity. And the children were born from the womb, which in Hebrew often is belly as well. Same word, bowels, belly, womb. It's all in the same spot. And the whole glorious truth is here we have it. And the children are born with their nose on edge and they're born allergic and they're born open and they're born raw almost. I shall never forget the story I once heard. At the moment I'm not invading along these lines, I'm only illustrating. I may come having time to talk about these things a little more later on, but I think probably tomorrow afternoon we should be using the River Derwent for a baptism service. So we'll see how things go. But I shall never forget hearing how that a mother once took her baby to the doctor because she couldn't stop it crying. It was forever crying, forever crying. Nothing could stop it. The doctor had given it its medicines, and I don't know what, and all the midwives advised all their advice and all the friends had advised their advice and the mother said she was nearly frantic with the baby. It never stopped crying night and day. And while she sat there, the doctor put his hand across his neck and picked up a cigarette from a cigarette box and lit it and chatting. Then all of a sudden he leaned forward and he blew smoke into the child's nostrils and it stopped immediately. And he found out his mother was absolutely addicted to tobacco. You see, I repeat what I was told. I'm not a doctor. And so we see these things. What a thing, beloved, for us to understand. This grey line of heredity in which the whole thing is worked out down through the human race. Children are suffering because of their parents. I want to tell you, beloved, people, something, there's nothing... Now you young people listen to this. You can't help it. We've got no chips on our shoulders. I mean, we mustn't take the sort of psychological side of it, the psychiatric side. They tell you it's your mother's fault and it's not your responsibility or it was your father's fault and you've got a great big chip on your shoulder. If I'd gathered together all the chips I'd had, I wouldn't have had enough chips to burn this place down when people have come to me. There's no reason for a chip on your shoulder at all. We can't help it. We were the same. I came in... Your mother and father came into the world the same. Don't start laying things off to them. Beloved, we're in this great realm of heredity and nothing can stop it. And when you young people, you're going to fall in love and marry and don't... Let me say here, I want to give a word here. I wish the whole conference was here about this. When you do get married, don't I beg of you, I beg you with all my heart to come off this hyper-spiritual, hypha-looting approach to something which is perfectly natural. They say, some say, Oh, God's given me a word. I've got to marry you. Many a little girl has come up to me and told me about this big fellow in there. He said, You've got to marry me, Mr. Norse. You see. You've got to get a word of prophecy. A lot of nonsense. You fall in love with one another. You don't have to marry. You want to ignore all that. It's the same kind of thing with which girls who are too stupid to know better or haven't been protected enough play with glasses on a Ouija board and ask, Are they going to get married? And who it is. It's the same thing about... We reduce the gifts of the Spirit. God save us. It's clairvoyance that most people want to go and consult. Not men of God, but don't go and consult them. We're not clairvoyants. Meet, fall in love and marry. Of course, if God says it's right. You pray about everything, don't you? You don't want special, special words in that sense. You come creeping up and say, This is a special marriage. God gave us a word. Is that why you got married? Well, you can see I didn't. Hallelujah. Ah, beloved. Calm off it. Nobody believes you. You're not that spiritual and God's not that stupid. Get more concerned about doing the will of God. You'll find everything then will work out right. Now, where was I? When you get married, now you remember, there's nothing really so wonderful in this whole wide world of naturalness as a spiritual, godly home and heritage. I tell you that. Nothing. I know that there are young people who say, I heard other people's testimonies how that they were cutthroats, murderers, blackguards, junkies. And they get saved with a marvellous testimony. You see, I was brought up in a Christian home and I was sent to Sunday school and they were almost crying because they haven't got a testimony. You see, getting junkies saved is popular. Everybody, it's the tops. If you're working amongst drug addicts and all this, well, all you poor normal people, I don't know why you should be so penalised. I think it's dreadful. Personally. Not that junkies and perverts and all that can't be saved, hallelujah. But I wasn't a junkie and a pervert. I don't think I was anyway. Not in the way that I've met since. I've met such horrible things. I didn't know they existed in the world. Bless God. I was protected and sheltered by a Christian home. Thank God for it. Thank God for it. That isn't to say I'm not sorry before God now that I ever did sin, any sin. Sometimes it overwhelms me. But the whole glorious thing, beloved, it's what old Norman pointed out. There are sins which are socially acceptable. And everybody does them, such as twist the income tax people if possible, or if you don't twist them, grumble about them. And the Lord says, you ought to pay your taxes. That's right. But they're exorbitant. Well, all right then. He'll give you exorbitant money to pay them with. That's all there is, isn't it? If he commanded it, he'll supply what he said. It may mean you'll have to control some of your other appetites, and not give license and reign to other things in which you've been indulging yourself, thinking that they are now the norm of life. Go out to Nepal and see what normal living is. Go out to... with Jackie next time. Where you'll have to go and live and sleep in a long hut. She doesn't tell you these things. Privacy is non-existent. You sleep with everybody else in the tribe, all together in one hut. How about that? Any volunteers? You see, this is it. Oh, we must have our bedrooms and... and is there a bathroom with text, please? I don't know what this is. And they even want to go to conferences in marvelous hotels where you can pay twenty pound a week and have the marvelous cuisine and everything at hand. God save us. You see, twenty pound... I'd better say come to Clifford and pay eight fifty or they could have sent the rest to the missionary societies. Don't they see... Well, I mustn't comment. I beg your pardon. Somehow it doesn't fit in. So, not with me. I'm... I don't know what it is. But I think of blood-baptized Calvary. I think of the Son of God who was laid on cold stone, slept under hedges. I think of Debussy. Sorry, I've got off the track now, haven't I? But I can't help it. I think of Debussy. I remember when I said to him the first time when I left Nepal, I said, you don't have to beg me. I don't know any uncles you'll hear, sister. They'll bear me witness. I talk about Debussy all over the country. That's right, you've all heard me. Some of you. When I think... He said, I want to go interior. Brother, he said, I want to go interior and preach the Gospels. I said, well, what are you going to do? He said, I should just take a sleeping bag. I said, but what do you do when you get to these places? I mean... He said, well, I should go and sleep under the people's tree. I'll wrap myself up in my sleeping bag. Sleep under the people's tree. You know what a people's tree is? It's a tree that they worship. If you want to gain marks in heaven, if you have a little bit of money, under the Hindu system, our sister will correct me if I'm wrong, I've got a pretty good memory, I think, on these things. You plant a people's tree and you sort of build a platform all round it and now you're a benefactor. You've given everybody a home that likes to come to the village. They sleep under the people's tree and they worship it and they worship your memory and you've gained, I don't know what, marks for your good conduct. Debu said he'd sleep under the people's tree. Would you? Would I? Could I? And... Well... Glory be to the name of the Lord. God is wanting to do something wonderful in our lives. He's... He's working on this great line of heredity still. He can't alter that. There are some things God can't do. You do know that, don't you? You see, we sing with God, for with God all things are possible. The Bible... The Bible says that there are some things God can't do. You know that, don't you? For instance, it says he can't deny himself. He cannot cease to be God. You see, there are some things God can't do. And in this great line of heredity, because God is Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Father, the expression of his character in the Son and an outflowing of his life through the Son in the Spirit. That's it. That's God. It's got to be like that. Everything's got to be like that. Because God can't bring forth anything from himself that isn't basically patterned upon himself. Sometimes we can but faintly trace the connection. But it's there. And the Lord wants us to understand. Nevertheless, through the fall of Adam and Eve. That which God had made so malleable, so impressionable, so open, so capable of communion, so needing communion in order to exist because God needs communion in order to be God. The Father and the Son of the Holy Ghost are named by John in his epistle in a marvellous way. They are called the Fellowship. The Trinity is a fellowship of Father and Son and Holy Ghost. Must be. So now you see this thing that God has made like himself, you. And this became vitiated, twisted, by the incoming upon this impressionable, malleable human being through the transgression and sin in the first place in came the devil. He took this and he twisted it all up. He made the lie seem the truth. He made God seem the devil and the devil seem God. What do you think this means when you read a verse like this in John's epistle? You know John's epistle is one of the most wonderful of the books in the Bible. When you read in the third chapter of his first epistle, beloved, that's one of the best words in the Bible, beloved, now are we the sons of God. Now are we. Therefore the world knoweth us not because it knew him not. The world doesn't know us. Let me give you an illustration of this. Now I don't mean that nobody knows that there is a name somewhere in England GW North. I don't mean that. That would only be knowing of me. Of course they don't and we don't want to be known. It means this, if I can illustrate it. Only the other week I was at a conference and a young, oh it was this young man I told you, I gathered this tremendous murderous, this murder weapon off him in the end. He got this on his hand at the moment. He'd been outside and he'd put on his knuckle dusters and his chains and he'd got this murder weapon hooked to his belt and he was waiting for me outside the building. As he went out the door, because God was working, I want to encourage you young men, ministers, ministers of the truth. As he went out the door, I was somewhere near the door. God had worked in a wonderful way and people were screaming out all over the meeting because of the devil's presence. And God was moving and I got over by the door and this young man had been sitting right over there and I was ministering to a group of people and they were all my attention. I heard a flurry and this fellow went round the back of the meeting and the door flew open and as he went out he said, You're a fake! You're a fake! You're a fake! I carried on. We don't take any notice of those things do we? But when the meeting was over, he was outside the door. He'd gone and got himself loaded up, knuckle dusters, chains, wires, knives. He was lounging by the door like this, waiting for me. They all got together praying. I didn't know they had a prayer meeting. I said, Do you want to see me? He said, Yeah, I do. I said, Well, what do you want to talk about then? Apparently he was disarmed straight away. He couldn't do anything else. Because I loved him. He'd gone all these things on and I know that these are only a show. And all their whole life is built up on fear. Anyway, I talked with him. And as we were talking, somebody else came up and said, You're not going to do that. Come on, hand over those knuckle dusters and chains to me. Come on. No. Come on. No. That went on for about ten minutes. Till in the end, I left. I said, Well, you'll know where I am if you want me to talk to me there. My room's up there. So on and so on. I saw him the next morning. I said, Come in. And he walked. He opened the door and stood in and said, I've come to say sorry about last night. I said, Have you? Yeah, he said, I'm sorry. I... He was so embarrassed, pulled out this big knife. He said, Here, here. Couldn't give it to me. At last he handed it over. Oh, he says, You know, that's been my security. Hand you that. I can't go into the details of his story. But this is what he said. This is the point that I'm trying to make. He said, And that person that spoke to me last night, I knew that person, he said. Well, I don't know you. I know that person, he said. He said, I know Satan. I don't know Jesus. I knew that person. He said, I don't know you. Right out of the devil's mouth. The world doesn't know us. Amen. It's good to have life proofs of the word of truth, isn't it? Right out of his mouth. I don't know you, he said. I knew that though, he said. I knew that. They didn't get it off him. Came to me this morning. He handed it over to the unknowable. Praise God. Meeting was in the night like a lamb. Seeking the Lord. I never cast any devils out of him. I want you to think these things over, beloved. God wants you to think these things over. That isn't to say demons don't need casting out of some people. That's not what I said. I said, I didn't cast any devils out of him. All right. God is moving upon the basis of heredity. Heredity. And this is why he could make this great new covenant with people. Turn with me, will you, to the last chapter of the last book in the Old Testament. Bless God for this Bible. Bless God for this Bible. Oh, hallelujah. Yeah. Yeah. You know the last book of the Old Testament, don't you? It's called Malachi. God hadn't spoken for 400 years when Malachi was written. Between Malachi and the New Testament, I mean. In the third chapter. Behold, I will send my messenger. He shall prepare the way before me. And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple. Even the messenger of the covenant. That's the Lord, who suddenly came to the temple. Whom you delight in. The holy shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. Amen. And so Jesus came as the messenger of the covenant. The new message he spoke to us through his son. Amen. Someone in whom the law on principle of heredity was going to be set forth as it should be set forth. As man had never seen it. Not even Adam's sons had seen it as it should have been in Adam in the first place. They found it twisted and perverted. And from it came a murderer and a victim. Yeah. Jesus comes. Hallelujah. He's the messenger of the covenant. The Lord in whom we delight. A great covenant in him. Oh, it's so lovely. In the brethren session, which we're hoping to hold in September, beloved, I want to expound the new covenant to all the elders and ministering brethren. So that we really know what it is. Sorry about you, sisters. This is one of your losses or gains, I'm not quite sure. But in Luke chapter 22, you'll know that it's the upper room and they're gathering for the last supper. The last Passover supper. And the institution of God's great new, new feast. 19, Luke 22. He took bread. He gave thanks and break it and gave unto them, saying, This is my body, which is given for you. This do in remembrance of me. Likewise, also the cup after supper. This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you. Which, of course, shows that none of them were in the new covenant, even though they were followers of the Lord and had moved in the gifts that we would call of the spirit. And had cast out devils and had raised the dead and had cleansed the leper. And had preached that you should repent and anointed with oil the sick. And they'd recovered. You've discovered all these things in your gospels. Yet none of them were in the new covenant, because the new covenant was in his blood and had not yet been shed. Which will place the truth of the baptism in the spirit in its proper perspective. All right. They were doing all these things unbaptized in the spirit. The whole glorious thing, beloved, is that he says, This is what's in my blood. And you will remember that this is what the Lord had said of old. He said, The life is in the blood. Amen. The life came from the blood. The blood seed determines the life. I'm coming back to the next. And from that blood comes flesh. All flesh comes from blood. Flesh is only blood. I was going to say solidified. You know quite well what I mean by that. That's what it is. That's why he said, You've got to eat my flesh as well as drink my blood. I can't stop on that now. It's only blood in another form. It's flesh. It's a marvelous thing. And he said that this cup. Now you notice what he said, don't you? It was the cup that was the new covenant. It wasn't the blood shed on the cross. Now notice what he's saying. He had to shed that blood. But it was only caught up as new covenant truth in the cup to be drinked. That to be drunk. That was preserved. You've got that? Can you see the proof? For his own. All right. They drank it. It had to be poured out on the cross. Hallelujah. But he brought them into the spiritual truth of it. Before he shed it. He showed them really what he was going to do. What it was all about. Why he did it. And his life, beloved. He crammed in, if you like, all the virtue of his glorious life into that blood. His blessed, wonderful life was as natural as it was spiritual as it was soulful. I didn't say soulish. I want to distinguish. Amen. Amen. It was as spiritual as it was soulful. Actually, the Hebrew word life in Leviticus that says the life is in the blood is really the Hebrew word soul, nefesh. The soul life is in the blood. Amen. The life of the soul is in the blood. Tremendous. Now, you know that soul life is only a result of spirit life. I hope you know that. What the spirit is works out through the soul. Into soul it works out. That's right. All right? Not going too fast or expecting your mind to boggle or stretch too much. So many of you have been students in degrees and ways. I never was a student. I left school when I was 14 and went to work. So you ought to be able to do it. All right. And that's why you have brains. You haven't got brains to make your way and a lot of money in the world. You've got sufficient brains to hear the call of God and do what he says. That's fine. That's marvelous. And the whole wonderful thing about it, beloved, is that that blood was shed for us. Amen. And I want to tell you that Jesus didn't eat sour grapes. And neither did his father. Listen. Luke 15. Today, beloved, we're going to see such marvelous truth behind these things that we've never seen in our lives before, perhaps. Luke, John 15. I am the true vine. My father is the husbandman. The grapes are for the father. That's what the vine produces the grapes for, for the father. Amen. Oh, hallelujah. The father's in this business of begetting children. Now, spiritual children. All right? And you see the kind of vine that he is. Because, you see, before we've had several different kinds of vines revealed to us in the scripture. Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood on the natural side. All right? We got that the other day. And then you've got Israel was the vine. Do you remember that? In fact, the vine was a symbol of Israel, like the fig tree. The fig tree standing for the civil side of Israel. The vine standing for the religious and spiritual side of Israel's national life. He said, I planted thee wholly a ripe vine. I'm quoting from Isaiah 6 now. I planted thee a ripe vine, wholly a ripe vine. He said, how is it that thou hast become the degenerate vine, a strange vine to me? So Jesus comes. And coming down to the end of chapter 14, which I want you to notice. Please notice. I'm having to go very fast. If I am being almost cryptic, certainly almost speaking in note form to you. I said the other day, the tapes are available if you want them. He started off chapter 14 by talking about father's house. Eh? All right. The father's house. Now he's on, I'm the true vine. He goes down this 14th chapter. I love this. He says, oh, glory be to God. Well, I'd love to be able to, if I stop in chapter 14, that's where we'll be till about dinner time tomorrow. But as we come down to chapter 14, this is what we read. He says, verse 13. Hereafter, he says, I will not talk much with you. For the prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me. Amen. You ought to be shouting your head off for this. You see, he's the vine. Now listen, the devil's got nothing in this great character and substance. That's the thing for you to see. Nothing. Oh, bless the Lord for 33 years of marvelous living. How shall we thank him? How shall we thank him? He says, that the world may know that I love the father. Here's the vine of love. Here's the vine of purity. He says, as the father gave me commandment, even so I do. Here's the vine of obedience. Hallelujah. Arise. Let us go hence. I am the true vine. Isn't that marvelous? Now, if you're going to be a true branch, you've got to be like this. The devil has nothing in you, because he's the branches. You're the branches, he said. I'm the whole vine. You're the branches. You're that part of me. All right. The devil's got nothing in me. Is that right, Lord? You check on me. I mustn't say anything's wrong. You check up. See? You know what it is? You want to be a true vine, to bear the fruit? Take note of this, my beloved brothers and sisters. He says, the fruit is the father. And I'm going to bear my sweet fruit. And father doesn't eat sour grapes. Off you. You. Now, here's a heredity pattern. Hallelujah. Now we're beginning to see this whole glorious thing. I hope you are, anyway. That's why, pray you understand this. That's why the first miracle he performed was to provide wine, sweet wine. See, it's all consistent, this Bible. It's all consistent. Nothing wrong with it, that's all. It's psychologically sound, spiritually sound, grammatically sound, scientifically sound. I tell you, it's absolutely sound. There it is. Marvelous. And we're on this glorious thing that the Lord has shown us. I'm the true vine, he said. You see, in Jesus Christ, there was a change of paternity. In Jesus Christ, there was a change of maternity. Amen. All right? That clear to you? Good. And this is how the Lord changes the curse of heredity, the curse of our heredity, and brings us into the blessedness of heredity. Glory. It's all done this way. And we know, as Norman told us last night, he said that at the cross, blessed be the name of the Lord, all praise God for the cross. Praise God for what the Lord did there. Amen. That was God's instrument of utter power. Now, the devil tried to circumvent the cross. Anything to stop Jesus getting to the cross. Just fall down and worship me, he said. I'll give you the kingdom of the world. Don't you bother to go to Calvary. Because he didn't say that, but Jesus knew what was behind it. You just do this, that's all right. You want the kingdom of the world? See? Don't go to the cross. Whatever you do, don't go to the cross. There's an easier way. There's another way. The Lord doesn't have anything from the devil. Nothing. He wouldn't take you as a gift from the devil. Nothing. That had all got to be broken. And he did it. How wonderful this is then, that God should bring us to an understanding of the way our Lord Jesus worked. And he said, I'm making a new covenant. This covenant is called the everlasting covenant. And in the end becomes the only one that there is. And the Lord moves on us to bring us into this glory of life. Oh dear. In Christ. All right then. In this new covenant, there is for us a new paternity and a new maternity. We must, as you know, be born of God. Must be. And we must be born of God utterly. It's all got to be of God. God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. It's got to be all of God. You see, we do need to know the Father. And we like to think that we are born of the Father. And it's all right. But you've also been born of the Holy Ghost. And you've also been born of the Son. In that the Son is the seed from which you're born. The Holy Ghost is the one that comes upon you so that you may be born. And the Father is the one that plants the seed of the Son in your heart. And you're born of God. You're not born of man. You're not born of the will of the flesh. You're born of God. Utterly. Amen. Now this is so wonderful, beloved. There are many experiences that come to a person before this. And there are more wonderful experiences that come to you afterwards. And the Lord is moving us on in this tremendous life. He's moving to undo the devil's work in our lives. And that's what he did at Calvary. He cut off all these things. I have already had a little word with Norman, my dear long-suffering brother, who's burning to preach to you. And I said, Norman, I think I'm going to preach tonight, if you don't mind. He said, oh yes, you do. And I told him what I was going to preach about. And he said, oh yes, that's what we need preaching. All right. Dear old Norman. I'll tell you what. I'll let him have the privilege of baptizing you tomorrow afternoon. Amen. I want to say something to you. Listen, beloved. I couldn't carry on without men like this. Like Bob Love, Dad Moffat, Norman Meaton, Jim Williams, who looks after all the publishing side. I couldn't carry on without these people. You must understand that it's the workers that are the real thing. See, God gave, who was the real one in our salvation? It was Jesus. Now you listen. We're the Father's workmanship created in Christ Jesus. The worker. Always. It's the people, those that are not seen. These are the things. Let's go on. You've got to be to this place, beloved, where you know this great miracle and glory of God in your heart. You and I have got to know a clear position in our lives. You will have known this. It doesn't matter whether you understand it or not. What I'm just sort of talking to you about today may be completely new to you. It may not be. It may be you know a lot more than I do, and you're just allowing me to be the spokesman. Well, that's fine. But you've got to know that you're born of that blood seed. You've got to know that. It's common sense in spiritual things. And you can only be born by the Holy Ghost coming upon you. Praise God. And Father begets you. That's why the first great cry of a regenerate heart is, Abba, Father. That's the birth cry. Hallelujah. Everybody has to have a birth cry. Amen. Abba, Father. It's in the heart. Hallelujah. The Holy Ghost takes the place of the Mother. Let me go with you into Galatians. In Galatians chapter three, four. Verse twenty-six. Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. Hallelujah. Praise God. Another precious thing. Now, this means to say that if you've been born of God, you've been born free. Jerusalem which is above is the mother of us all, which is free. Amen. Glory. And that's why he says, in the opening of the next chapter, stand fast in the liberty. Now, this is what so many people don't do. You and I have been born again from above. The word translated again in John three, where it says you must be born again, is the exact word which is used here. Jerusalem which is above. You've got to be born from above. Amen. The Holy Ghost has to come upon you. You can be born from above. You must be born again from above. You must be born of the Holy Ghost. It is a marvellous thing. You know, sometimes I think tremendous mistakes have been made. I can remember reading a book about God's dealings with a man named Bevington in America. For your information, it's a sort of a companion book that you ought to read to the letters of a man of God. Bevington. Bevington. If you can find this book by Bevington, scour your second-hand bookstores and read about what this man Bevington did. He was a great man in America. There are a whole sense of men's stories in this book. The mighty movings of the power of God. And some of you heard me tell the story about how all the maggots in the ground were dead. Do you remember that one, Norman? Well, this is this man Bevington. And for those of you who say, now what does that mean? And prick your ears straight up. Well, I'll tell you. He was a tremendous man of God. And before they got this sort of word, deliverance, as a gimmick on everybody's mouth, he was using it. He was moving in the great powers within America. And upon this occasion, anyway, he went along to a farmer. And this farmer had been bitter against the gospel that was being preached. So he went to see him. He said, well, look, he said, this is the day before pesticides and how they destroyed these things by chemicals years and years ago, a century ago, I would think. He said, look, there's all my corn dying in the field, he said, eaten away with weevils and worms, he said. You say about God being love, you prove to me from that. You know, he went off in all his bitter ways, you see. So Bevington said, all right, all right, you go walk down your field in the morning, he said, and there won't be one living weevil in your field. So at the crack of dawn, the farmer was up, took a spade, lit it up, full of weevils. But they were all dead. And he went all over his field, digging a bit out there, digging a bit out there. All dead. And in all the other fields around him, the other farms, they were working. This man moved in the power of God. We talk about miracles, but, you know, hallelujah, these tremendous things. Well, Bevington once was preaching in a campaign, and a real old drunkard drinking back woodsman came in, and he used to drink himself paralyzed nearly every Saturday and beat his wife up, and I don't know what he did. He was the terror of this place. So anyway, he wouldn't be there, he was in the saloon. But Bevington prayed, and this man came into the meeting lurching drunk. Tried to interfere with the meeting, Bevington left him to the end. When he was there, he was still there, absolutely drinking spirits, I don't know what. So Bevington went with him in a side room, and he locked himself in with this fellow, and prayed before God, and came against this devil. And somewhere around midnight, the whole lot went. The devils went, the alcoholism went, everything went, and he was sobered up, and he said, Glory to God, he says, glory to God, I'm saved. He was marvellous, he was saved, he said, I feel wonderful. And Bevington said, no you're not, the devil's only got to go, you've got to get born again now. That's the mistake. That's the mistake. Of course people feel clean and marvellous when something like that happens. Let me say they're born again. This is where so much has passed for the genuine, which is still the false. God save us and give us clear eyes. We won't be talking about backsliders so much as pitying them because they were never really born. So many things. I've discovered this. I went to a city called Bradford. I've already mentioned it, haven't I? Long time ago now. I went up to another place, a local town, and when I went up there to preach, they said, this place is full of backsliders, brother, full of backsliders. Full of them, they said. True enough, I went into the church and there were about a handful of people. Full of backsliders. I found afterwards, after I'd been in somewhere, they'd never been born. They'd made decisions. People had turned cartwheels and somersaults. And there'd been changes. This is the tragedy. Jerusalem, which is above, is the mother. Amen. David got a glimpse into this in the old coven, when he was talking about Jerusalem. Go about Jerusalem, tell her a book, he said. When it comes to be written, he said, thou write, this man was born there. David. See? Why not remember? He got a revelation, didn't he? All my springs are in thee. Try and remember. But he'd been born in Bethlehem, he wasn't born in Jerusalem. He was born in Bethlehem. See? See? Thou Bethlehem Ephrathah, though thou be least among the princes of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me, whose goings forth have been from of old. Hallelujah. David was born in Bethlehem. We call on all his glorious blood. Hallelujah. This mother, this blessed coming of the Holy Ghost on us, beloved, this great envelopment, not evolution, this great envelopment of power and life and spirit from above that takes hold of us, beloved, and deals with everything. You see, there's a revelation in the scripture right in the opening chapters. What do you think it means when it says, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. See? And the earth at that time had no form. It was a shapeless, void mass under the waters. And it had to come up from the deep. In the beginning, when God moved in creation power, Paul was talking, Norman was talking about it last night. If any man be in Christ, he says, he said, and this is one way the Greek can be, it's one of those phrases that can be not so precisely rendered. You've got in the authorised version, there is, he is a new creature. Norman went on to give us an alternative rendering, he is a new creation. But perhaps a more correct rendering still is, if any man be in Christ Jesus, there is a new creation. Yeah. Amen. Now. Hallelujah. He came from the deeps of eternity. He came from the deeps whence the deeps of the first creation came. Hallelujah. He is the exact expression of the Father's substance, His character. This word substance is a marvellous word. It means that which stands under, that which is below the surface. Amen. Oh, no way. Come on, let's go to the New Testament. I, I, I. This, this is, this is the great thing that God wants us to see, beloved. We'll go into the, into the Colossians. Look at this. It says this, that in the first chapter of the Colossians, it speaks of Jesus in verse fifteen. He is the image of the invisible. That's right. He is the image of the invisible. That which cannot be seen. I know it's the invisible God. I'm laying the emphasis on invisible. Obviously it's the invisible God, because God is invisible. And He was the exact image of the invisible. He was the image of God's substance. And the substance, strangely enough, of God, is that which we would call insubstantial. It's spirit. God is spirit. If you like, that's His substance. You say, really? That's a contradiction in terms. No, it's not. Not once you know the things of the spirit. You know that the only thing that is substantial is spirit. That's right. You know that straight away. The rest isn't. You know, for instance, that you're not, you're not really sitting on anything solid. You know that. You're sitting on a lot of, a mass of whirling atoms. You're sitting on power. Most unsubstantial. I don't know how in the world it hangs together. Well, see, there you are. But this is what, it's by Him all things hang together, or consist, as we're told, in the Colossians, by Him. He gave apparent, visible substance to the invisible. Glory be to God. Ah, Jesus is marvellous. But He's most marvellous in this. Not in creation. When we walk, we see these trees, we hear these birds, we rejoice in the sunshine. I'm enjoying it anyway. I hope you are. And, oh, it tastes lovely. But that's nothing. Nothing at all. Ooh, fine. God would only have to go like that, and there'd be another one. That's right. He made them by the breast of His mouth. He only said, let there be light. Marvellous. It all came out of a word. In other words, He expressed His spirit, power, thought, imagination, intention, everything in the word. So do you. Everything. But when that word became flesh. Oh, glory. When the word became flesh. Oh, hallelujah. It came right out of the blessed, invisible spirit of God. Marvellous. And that's why you're told in the 1st Corinthians letter, and in the 10th chapter, that they all drank water of the spiritual rock that followed them. Now you can't have a spiritual rock. Can you? I mean, rock is the opposite of spirit, isn't it? You don't throw rocks at spirits. But you see, that's it. Because that's the nearest thing that God can get it to impinge on your mind. That spirit is solid, eternal rock. Substance. The greatest substance there is. More substantial than trees and flowers and bees' knees that Norman talked about. And the oceans and anything. More solid than the granite. More real. Now Jesus was the exact expression, image of that substance. He was the image of the invisible God. Isn't that lovely? He came forth from the Father and the Holy Ghost. He said, you must be born again. Amen. There has to be a change of paternity. You must now belong to the Father's house. The tragedy is this. And this will explain a lot of things to you, if you will let the Lord teach your heart. You go back to John chapter 8. It is the chapter, you remember, in which he said, You are of your father the devil. Remember, we were reading this yesterday. You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do. Alright? Up in that same chapter, higher up with it, read it. It says this. Verse 31, he's speaking to the Jews that believed on him. He says, If you continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth. They didn't know the truth then, you see. He says, You shall know if you continue in my word. You'll know it then. And the truth shall make you free. They answered him, We be Abraham's seed. And were never in bondage to any man. How blind can people be, you see. Declaring their liberty by hand and foot. With worse than grave plans. How sayest thou you shall be made free? Jesus answered them, Amen. Amen. I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin. And the slave abideth not in the house forever. The son abideth ever. Now this is it. We've got many people who are slaves, servants, in the house. They work in the things of father's house. They have great privilege. And they have great powers. They can do marvelous things. But they're not sons. And they won't abide in the house forever. They'll be able to go in and out of New Jerusalem. Father's house in the new creation. But they won't abide there. And God is wanting us to understand this tremendous truth. And if you understand this, it will explain ever so much to you. The people who are truly the sons of God are nevertheless servants of God. There's a vast difference between servants and sons. Though every son must be a servant, every servant is not a son. Isn't that right? Yes, that's obvious. You've only got to do some thinking. You see, you know that God raised up Pharaoh to serve him. And as we were pointed out, he called a man his servant, a heathen king. God makes everybody serve. The devil has to serve God, as a matter of fact. Did you know that? The whole tremendous thing, beloved, is that some men have wonderful powers. They have wonderful abilities. They serve, but they're not sons. That will explain the verse in Matthew 7. Where you remember Jesus is speaking, he said, people will come and say, Lord, Lord, in thy name we've cast out devils. In thy name we've done many wonderful works. And he said, I shall say to them, depart from me, ye workers of iniquity. I didn't know you. Really. So we see that possessions of powers, even miracle-working powers, are not proof of sonship. Though all of us who are the real children of God have got to move into this realm. And God wants us to see and understand this. That we shall be clear in that day. The great thing about sons, beloved, is that they've had this glorious nature change. They've had this great change because of a new father and a new mother. Amen. Yeah. They've come to the place where they've been. Whatever term you want to use, it doesn't matter where they've been. Where they've died with Christ, been crucified with Christ, or whatever it is. They've come to the place where they have been. And the old wretched man that I am, absolutely at the end of themselves. Can't go another inch. Cannot go any further, Lord. That's right. Oh. My wife's here. I often talk about this. She'll remember the night when I said to her, I was caught in her then, she'll watch the man. I said, I'm a contradiction of all that I can be. I was a preacher man. I was fairly gifted, you know, a ripe young age. You mustn't confuse natural ability with spiritual gift. You must never do it. I had plenty of natural ability. I was brought up in the right circles. I was dedicated under the flag of the Salvation Army. I think I told you this the other night. My father was Church of England. My mother was linked with the Salvation Army. I went to a Methodist church. I tell you, used to go to the mild main, Mission to the Jews. I tell you, I'm a dear old Maiton Hancocks. Boy, my father used to lead a Lotting House party. I used to go and push the harmonium round on four wheels, have a marvellous time, carry his Bible bag in my hand. My mother, my father would preach the gospel in the Lotting Houses in London. I tell you, they were marvellous, salubrious places. A stank of chips and kippers and cockroaches and tobacco and snuff and beer. Oh, it was great. I used to go there. I tell you, natural ability. I did my first public work when I was three. I sang a solo when I was three years of age. That's why I'm so sort of... You see, it was natural. I want to tell you, beloved, that the natural is as useless to God. If natural means would have done it, beloved, Jesus wouldn't have come. No. Not that what we are and have can't be yielded to the Lord, of course it can. But, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. These things are not for God, beloved. You've got to be born again. You've got to be born again. God's got to come on you. He's got to do things. You've got to come to that place where the death of Christ is brought in to deal with everything inside you. You've come up out of the deeps. You've come back from the depths of what? Oh, the sea. That's where you've come from in the human race. That's where you've come from when you were born for the first time. And the Lord does love to meet us. Just looking at my watch and how much more liberty I might take. The deeps. Now this is your trouble. We discover things deep, deep, deep, deep down in us. Have you ever discovered the deep things? Things that you don't probably know at first are there. You couldn't help it if your father was a drunkard. You couldn't help it if your mother was a spiritualist medium. You couldn't help it. Nothing to do with you. You didn't ask to be born. You came into the world. You couldn't help it either that you were born in the 20th century and not in the 1st century. You had nothing to do with it. So, you're here. Beloved. We discover things in ourselves, don't we? The deep, deep hidden things. You know, you go to the scientists and they talk about the subconscious. They talk about the unconscious. They talk about all these things. And they'll almost have you, if you're not careful, in a place where you say, Well, I can't help it, you see. And you accept no responsibility. And then we wonder why we breed a generation or two of hippies. They're not just the result of two world wars. They're the result of science. Falsely so called. Fiddling about in the realms of the human mind and personality. Gropingly coming to some kinds of understandings about them. Knowing nothing about causes, really. None at all. They don't. Denying that there is spirit, they deny that. Most of them deny that there is spirit, so they can't know. That's immediately excluded. For everything comes from spirit. You see. Oh, and that spirit, beloved, that spirit that's in human beings, I know you have a particular spirit when you're born, but the spirit of man, beloved, which is in man, has been dead for thousands of years. Dead. In the garden of God. They've eaten it. Absolutely dead. That's why they don't know there's a spirit there. It is dead. That's why the first man was of the earth, but the second man was a quickening spirit, a life-giving spirit. That's what we're told about in 1 Corinthians 15. It came to bring to life something that nobody knows anything about, doesn't even know it's there. Groping about, trying to find, is there spirit? Let's promote psychic research. Let's try and find out here, shall we? Let's go into all these realms. Can't find spirit. Don't know that it's there because it's dead. But it's there. And that spirit, beloved, is indwelt by another spirit, who's part of these spirits. You can find this in Ephesians, chapter 2. You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this age. According to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. In every child of disobedience, the devil is working. This prince of the power of the air is working in every child of disobedience. And it isn't so much a demon as him, himself. And this is why in so much ministry that is directed along the line of to rid people of demons, is missing the mark, because it doesn't recognize that. And it's been plainly written in our Bibles all the time. Half our mistakes arise from the fact of totally ignoring some scriptures in order to promote others. We have to come to a great understanding. The spirit that now works in the children of disobedience, among whom we all had our manner of life in times past, fulfilling the lusts and desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrong, even as others. But God was rich in mercy for his great love, wherewith he loved us even when we were dead, in trespasses and sins here, quickened us again with Christ. Amen. Now you see how he did it. He created us all in Christ. Now I was here on our first meeting on Friday night. This is how God has overcome it. This is how he's dealt with us all. In Christ, in chapter 2, we read that we are his workmanship. Verse 10. We were created in Christ. Amen. Hallelujah. I'm glad, even if I was a woman like you, I wasn't created in the garden of Eden. Because you were, you understand that. I'm glad I was created in Christ. How about that? Hallelujah. I was created in Christ. My word. You were created in Christ. And because you were created in Christ, now you're going to be formed, and Christ is going to be formed in you. Because you've already been created. Substantial, you've been created in Christ. Hallelujah. Isn't this a precious thing? And because this is so, this is the thing that happens. When we're born of the Holy Ghost, we are born into that creation, and we're made alive in, though at first not aware of, that inward life of Christ. Amen. No wonder, of course, naturally then, the first cry should be, Father! Amen. See? Glory. Father! Our Father! Hallelujah. Isn't it precious? You see, that's the cry of a son, every time. And we're there. And we've been created there. Oh, what a thing the Lord did, beloved. That precious Lord Jesus, who lived and lived and simply lived in total obedience, and He created, out of the substance of life, in circumstances similar to yours, He created a new man. Absolutely. And I've been born in that, been born into it, born into it, born into it. Glory be to the name of the Lord. You know, I'm thrilled with this. I really am. And that's what our new birth is really all about. This sudden coming alive on the inside of Christ. My, what a life. Now, substantially, you're a living spirit. I've got you. Touch yourself. Well, we're no longer outside. And Christ is no longer outside of us. We are in Him. And that means that we are to know growth in and development of all the inward states of Jesus Christ as a man. All right? This is our development. This is our growth. Think of all the inward states of you, unborn. That's it, unborn again, I mean. Think. Think of your temperance. Think of your language. Think of your disposition. Think how horrible you were. Think what a rebel you were. Think how proud you were. Think how wasteful you were. Think how envious and jealous you were. Hmm? Think how quarrelsome and nasty and catty and cruel you were. Think of it all. Well now, the exact opposite of that, that's what you have got to be. And that's what Jesus Christ was. All right? Now, you've been born into that. And immediately there is the change of your nature. Immediately there's a change of disposition. Immediately there's a change of all the basic things. There are absolutely vital to the development of the only true life that can please God the Father. For the only life that will please God the Father is the life of Jesus. You understand that, don't you? Yes. But, maybe I'm joining you, but, the trouble has to, well, what was it when we were converted, which, when we weren't dead and we were still, you know, lacking the resurrection life, but there was a falling away of the old faith. Yes, yes. I think you can liken that in the scripture to, say, the apostles, the disciples at the call of the Lord. Peter, for instance, there was a conversion. He was changed from his former manner of life. He started to follow the Lord. He became conscious of his sin, saying, depart from me for I'm a sinful man, O Lord. He began to understand some of the terrible things of his own nature, personality and life. And he had to be taught of God. In many things he had still the wrong attitude. For instance, in the matter of forgiveness, you know, when he said, how often shall I forgive my brother, Lord? Seven times. And he thought he was nearly being a martyr to do that. And Jesus says, 70 times. He had a revelation so far, and most of us do this. But there comes a place in our life when all these things which are partial, in our experience, if we like, if you like to put it that way, we have a taste of them, and the things that begin happening become suddenly real and full and glorious. And developing on into this wonderful place where God is going to fulfill everything in our lives. In the first resurrection of Jesus, Peter, he said, after you are converted, now wasn't that equating conversion and Pentecost? The real conversion, yes. This is the thing I think we've got to see. And often I will say this to people, I say, well I'm converted. But most people don't understand by conversion that Jesus meant when he was really, inwardly totally changed, and that happened to him on the day of Pentecost. See, the Lord Jesus told him, he said, when you are converted, you strengthen your brethren, Peter. And he'd been following the Lord for three years and wasn't converted in this sense. Yet we use Peter as an illustration of conversion often. Especially that text, you know, follow me and I'll make you fishers of men. And we read how he rose up, left his boats, left his fishing, and started to follow the Lord. And to such an extent he said, well we've left all and followed you, Lord. What shall we have therefore? And yet Jesus said, told him, in that upper room, he said, you're not converted. And even before that, you will remember in Matthew's gospel, it all happened out of jealousy, it gives you an inside view of their hearts that they've never had a real nature change. You remember that they'd come to the receipt of customs, where they got to pay their taxes, and they hadn't got the money to pay the taxes, the full taxes anyway, one presumes that they had some. And so the Lord said to Peter, he said, now you go down to the sea, he said, take up the first fish that comes, take the coin out of its mouth, pay that for thee and for me, you see. In that ends the chapter, and I'm always talking about this, you should never stop at the end of chapters, it splits up the truth. In the next chapter you have, that they all come to him, you see, and they say, oh, who's the greatest of the kings? Favouring Peter. Why didn't he pay my taxes? Look at the jealousy, the littleness, the envy in these men's hearts. They'd already cast out devils, they'd already healed the sick, they'd already cleansed lepers, they'd done a lot, but were jealous. And one said, who, who? He isn't. Well, you know the sort of things that they would say. Paying Peter. No, not even to me. They start to argue, you see. And Jesus didn't do anything else but call a charge. He said to him, he said, except you're converted, he said, so be it. But these men have had revelations, they have. Except you're converted, and to come as a citizen of Christ, you won't get into the kingdom. They thought they were in, they were only arguing for who was going to be greatest. That's the tragedy. Most of our misunderstandings come because we do not read our Bibles properly. It's all written. They've had some kind of a conversion. Matthew had been converted from being a public tax gatherer. John and James and Peter and Andrew had been converted from being fishermen. And they'd been converted from doing all sorts of this, that and the other. But the real inward thing that reduced them to little children, you've got to be converted and become a little child. Amen. It's the conversion under this, which is the big thing. And, he said, unless you are, you won't get in. And what a glorious thing this is. And you see, so you find Peter, if we take him as an illustration of this, on behalf of all the disciples, and I suppose he's got to bear this, it's always this way. He was one of the chief, if not the very chief of the apostles. He was called first by Jesus. Simon, he was the first one named. So, this is the penalty you pay for being at the top. Everybody throws bricks at you from then on. That's right. Because the others' names aren't so prominent. So, we'll illustrate from Peter. You know who he is. He's in the judgment. And a little girl comes up to him and says, Now, you're one of his disciples. He says, No, I'm not. Norman brought this up so beautifully last night. And he said the truth about him. I don't know him. And he told the truth. He'd been following him for three years. He didn't know him. This is the thing they said in the upper room. He said, Show us the Father. Have I been so long time with you? And yet you don't know me, Philip. He didn't know him. He'd been following him for three years. Didn't know him. There's your tragedy. You see. This really takes place in our lives. Oh, we're left out of the place of knowledge. And we come right in when God deals with us. And here's old Peter. He said, I don't know him. And they all forsook him and fled. I never knew a true born-again, spirit-filled child of God that loved Jesus, that ever forsook him. I admit it. Would you forsake him because he was going to be crucified? If you were a born-again child of God, without any big boasts or heroics, you wouldn't forsake him and deny him and curse about him, would you? Of course you wouldn't. But hallelujah. Her glory. When he was born, that changed him. Is there any difference between when you were born and now? Well, not really. Only that this, of course, these people are instanced as following the Lord Jesus. And these are the ones in whom the illustrations, from whom the illustrations come. But there's no real difference. Why? They were there, weren't they? And what you're saying, we get born again, but we have to go through... Yeah, but you don't have to go through processes where you deny your Lord and curse him and run away from him for fear of your own skin. Yes, we have to go through processes, Dominic. We bless the name of the Lord. If we didn't, where would any of us be? But to see these things as they are written in the Scripture sets us so wonderfully free. The cross, you see, this is it. He said to them, I suppose really I ought to stop, wouldn't I? It's ten past five, isn't it? Pardon? Well, here it is. He said to them, follow me, follow me. He made additions, like I'll make this name, and this sort of thing. Follow me. Follow me, follow me. Where's he going? Follow me. Where's he going? Follow me. Well, where's he going if he's asking to follow him? He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, he said, following that wonderful word to the woman taking her down, neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life, and away he goes. You see, then he starts to talk about the difference between servants and sons. Notice the logic of the Scripture. In John chapter eight, goes through it, deals with a man that's been born blind. When do I know? Now I can see we preach that as salvation, but it wasn't, he could only see. You see, we use these things and talk about them as though they are concretely the things we're talking about, but they're only illustrations. And on we go, you see. And on we go. Well, where are you going, Lord? He said, I'm the resurrection and the life. Where is he now? Keep following me. He goes to the upper room. He says, here you are. Off he goes. He goes to get somebody. Where are you going now, Lord? On your cross. Whoa. Run away. I'm not having that. Do you see that? That's I. I go my way. I go my way. You can't come to the Father but by me. Come on, follow. On the cross. Never. Then no death, no birth. No death, no life. They ran away. Oh, they were lovely men. You would have run away under the same circumstances. I would have run away under the same circumstances. But the Holy Ghost has come now. He changed it all. Amen.