In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of growing spiritually and doing the will of God. He highlights that physical attributes or circumstances do not determine one's spiritual growth. The preacher encourages the audience to focus on their relationship with God and the manifestation of God in Jesus Christ. He also warns against being distracted by worldly pursuits and wasting time. The sermon concludes with a reminder that one's true character will eventually be revealed, and it is important to align one's actions with their true identity in Christ.

Let's catch up, shall we? Now, there's a change from the parable, actually, but bearing that parable in your mind, because the Lord comes back to what he said in that parable, lower down the chapter. He says this, this parable spake Jesus, verse 6, unto them, but they understood not what things they were of which he spake unto them. They've got a clue, very religious, of course. Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. Now the position's changed. Alright, the position was the Jewish nation, and John Baptist, the doorkeeper, introduced him, brought him in. Now, in verse 4 you will read that he put forth his own sheep out of the Jewish nation. They were Jews no more, in the heart of God, talking about the practices. You do know this. Now you must take this into your hearts. Your religion is what you are defined by, not what nation you belong to. I've used the word religion because there are great religions in the world, but that's all the Jews were. They were in a religion. And he brings them forth. Now there is no more any fold. Fold being nationalities or nations. You don't, whoever you are, and I know we're a very mixed company on a fixed level. This is dear old sister, for instance, from Russia, summit. There are no perimeters or parameters which you want so far as we are concerned. The world belongs to you. Did you know that? You can read it. You would latch on to it immediately if you'd read Paul. He says that yours is the world. He tells them that. What have we done with it? That's the point. In God's mind and heart there is no great fixity of nations. Do you understand that? It's only greedy men who've made it, these nations. Greedy men. The folly of men in the beginning when God confounded their languages, they had to separate according to whether they understood one another. But not now. The world belongs to you, friend. Now what have you got to account for that when you stand before God? Perhaps you've never noticed it in the Bible. You'll find it, keep reading one of Paul's epistles. All right. I won't tell you where. I think I'll just tell you it's a corinthian one. The world belongs to you. You say, well look, my part of the world, well you needn't stay in your part of the world anyway. You understand that? Keep it very clear. And nationalities have finished. There are, now we are divided really by our religions. Muslims, Buddhists, so and so, go through all the lot, Shintoists, Shinkosus, a lot. But you see, beloved, that doesn't matter to God. And one of the great things of the world is that they're making it more difficult for true lovers of the Lord to enter their countries. This is the wickedness of man. They're bound to do it. Once you get into sin, and into the systems of sin, you can't break out of them. You're bound by it. I want you to know I'm not an Englishman. I think I told you yesterday. I gave up being an Englishman when I got born again, voluntarily. I'm only domiciled here. That's all. And the great thing about it, beloved, he shows us here, the shepherd puts forth his own sheep. That's right. And he goeth before them. Okay. They hear his voice. Now he alters it. He says in verse 7, I am the door of the sheep. I am the door. You cannot belong to the flock of the Lord Jesus, and of God, unless you go through him. Literally through him. Not I believe in him. Now we use the term of advocacy. We can go through somebody who can speak in Parliament, or go to the Queen, or she wants her, and speak. And possibly they may speak on your behalf, whoever these people are, but the almost certainty is they never do. You know that the sheep are now an international body. He went into a nation, called his own sheep to follow him, and led them out of their nationalistic thinking. You beware that your thinking is influenced by your nationality, by your first birth, and not by the second. We all have to adjust our thinking to the thinking of God, and not to the thinking of what the nations. You're forced to do what the politics say to a certain extent. But bless God for those people in Russia, if I may speak it, just as she catches my view, who stood out against it. Against the devilish Marxism. You see? Prepare to suffer. Prepare to go down. Don't wrap yourself in the flag. You and I are to see what it's about. I'm aware I'm preaching to you, rather than teaching you at the moment. But I'm responsible before God, for any gift he has given me, to acquaint you with truth as I know it, as he has revealed it to me. I'm not quoting for books, I never read books before I come and lecture, or preach anywhere. Only this. Mind you, I've read over 80 years of it. But you have got to get these deep principles into your heart. And unless you get the principles of anything right, you don't get the results right. Amen. Here we go. I am the door of the sheep. John Baptist was this, relieved from his position, you will know he was very soon decapitated. He once said of him, he must increase. Speaking of Jesus, I must decrease. And he lost his head. Because he spoke out against sin. Amen. And that's so very wonderful. And so Jesus talked there had been false Christs on the earth before he came. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers. But the sheep did not hear them none. They might have gathered a crowd round them, like you can gather a crowd called a church round you. Not now speaking of the real church. And you can do this and people come and one thing and another takes place and you may like it very much. It's very modern. It's very with it. But I say, what am I with? This is the thing. You see, all, everybody, I am the door. Not what I have said is the door. Except that you can rely on everything he said, because he is the door. He is the solid thing. He listening to me will probably open your understanding. You may reject or choose not to reject what I say. That's open to everybody. And that goes with every man, of course, to whom you listen. This great truth is that Christ is the door. John Baptist started off by saying, we've come to make a way for the Lord. That's what he'd come for. He was the forerunner. He quoted, as you will know, from Isaiah. And he says these great things. I'm the way. You see? And that's how cast up the stones, you know, valleys and hills, all are to be leveled out in your own thinking and what not. And in your own spirit, so that you walk on with the Lord. I'm the way, he says. But now he comes down and he refines it still more. He says, I'm the door. That's a much smaller thing than a way. You understand that? It's very personal. You can't get into the flock of God except through him. Him. Not what he says, are you taking this in? It's him, his personality, his soul, his spirit. And through the blood of his body. You have to go through him. This is where John is far superior to any other gospel writers. They never talk like this. But you know, John was called up to heaven and commanded to write by God where the other three got their orders from. I cannot tell what they did. I simply cannot tell because it's not recorded. Here then is the thing. I, I've got to go through that person. Call him the intercessor, call him the high priest, all the Bible terms you can think of. But it's him. I've got to go through his very blood. The basic constituency of the body. I go through him, through his blood. I go through him, through his thoughts, through his wonderful powers. I go through him. And unless you've gone through him, you aren't him. Though you may call yourself a Christian. This is the big thing. And you, in the end of course, have to be an explanation to blinded, darkened understandings out there. You should be an explanation of Jesus Christ. The way you live. The way you talk. The way you behave yourself. I'm not talking about gifts now. People confuse gifts which can really become the gift of the gab. Excuse the vulgarity. You see. Do you love Jesus? Well, let me ask you a question. Do you love him as being outside you or in you? Boy, something's happening in you if you love Jesus within. I'm the door, he says. Not the church. Not any specific teaching, whether you call yourself an Arminian or the other group. Scrap. That's not the way. It can focus your mind. You can have great arguments about it. You can spread what you think is your enlightenment about it. But it's through him. Him. A being. A new life is nothing else but the sensibilities and being of Jesus Christ coming into you. Of course, you'll only be a baby. You won't be born a man. But you've heard the great saying that the boy is the father of the man. You think that men are fathers of boys. I'll pause a moment that that should sink in. And of course it acts on the female as well. It's a big, big thing to get this thing in perspective and understand it. If you enter in through Jesus Christ, or as he says, by me, you'll be saved. And you will go in and out anywhere, everywhere, and you'll find pasture. You don't go in and out of Jesus, but you go anywhere. And do you know it? Everybody will see it and know it. You won't need propping up by a sermon once a week, or anything like that. Though it's never forsake the assembling of yourselves together, here is the marvellous truth. The thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they, the sheep, might have life. And that, more abundantly. Now you know that there's one thing about life, is it grows. So have you grown? Look back over the twelve months of your past life. Have you, the person that I hear, that I observe, not that I particularly listen to, in preaching sermons, or singing solos, or anything like that, they may have a place in that we want to use all our talents for God. But it's you. If you are here next year, which strangely some of these dear locals, they come to every course, at least where I've been here. I don't know what happens other times, but you understand, beloved, I've got to know that you've had twelve months, not that growth spiritually can always be measured by time. There's a time element in it though. You have to see, beloved, these great things. You've got to be better, better, better. The thing about you, if you're a Christian, is you never get worse, or worse. If you're truly born again, child of God, they get better. You get better, better, better. And if you may, if I may use this word, in the elements of life, not in a head, that'll only give you a swelled head. Probably each one of you here this morning, better educated than I am, went through university, I've never been in one, save to lecture. So don't think it depends upon your education. I was born in the worst part of the world, pretty well, called the East End of London. Terrible place. Yeah, you may be, you're far better off than I, being born in a lovely country, where there's sick ice and snow for most of the year or something, or wonderful, gorgeous sunshine, which I love. All right. This thing does not count, not in the spirit. You have to grow and grow immensely. So if you say, hasn't he grown? Hasn't she grown? You're still about the same height, about four foot nothing, or six feet nothing, or something. That's got nothing to do with it. You have a body for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to do the will of God while you're in it. Married or unmarried. Hallelujah. The thief, he says, he only comes to steal, to kill, to destroy. How come that they might have life? They've not got it. They haven't got a clue what it is. They've got religion. They believe that, and it's about the best religion you could possibly have. A marvellous tabernacle, high priest in all his accoutrements and his colours and his dresses, and all this business. And Jesus Christ had a coat that his mother made him, and that was it. Where were you born? Well, listen to God, and where do a manger do for my son? Born in a manger. You see, beloved, we are taken up with things that are in themselves nothing, and at their worst can be terrible burdens to us. Any man can know this great thing. Any man, any woman, of course, you know, it's the inclusive gender. And this is what it's about. I'm the good shepherd. In the Greek, you know, that word good is beautiful. I am the beautiful shepherd. Now, unless Jesus Christ is beautiful beyond any man or any woman you know, whether it be mother, father, wife, sweetheart, or anything like that, you're not there. You will have to be taught, checked, and if you go on, you'll cease to hear the voice of God about it any longer. This is the thing. I'm the beautiful shepherd. He's talking about character. He's talking about what you are inside. He might have had straw poking in his face when he was born. I am the beautiful shepherd. He that is an island, not like me, are not paid to do anything. You know, I used to work for my living. You know, we had a wood business. I founded it, actually. And somebody, I went somewhere to preach. I'm telling you this. And they took a fancy to me, I suppose. It was a Baptist church. And they, to my surprise, asked me if I would become their pastor. They were without a pastor. I never went through a Bible school, not like this elect one in Birmingham. I just came up from nowhere, nothing. Hallelujah. I went there, and I preached. And they sat me in the vestry, as it's called, afterwards. And all the deacons gathered round. And they said, like you're preaching, you know, will you come and be our pastor? We haven't got a pastor. And they went through all kinds of things. And then towards the end, very tentatively, they asked me about what wage I would require to go and serve them. And I shocked them to their core, I suppose. But then I'm pretty radical. I said, you see, I'd come away from swinging an axe in a forest. I'd come away from turning wood into useful this, that, and the other. Oh, I don't know, I didn't know anything about it. But there you are. The Lord just trained me. He's a wonderful teacher, you know. And I said to these men, I would consider it was the devil talking to me if a man offered me money to preach the gospel. I didn't know what to say. Nevertheless, I went because God told me to. I insisted that I didn't go around with begging boxes or plates or bags. Don't want the world's money. I've never been paid ever since. Oh, yes, I did. Excuse me. I went up to a place called Bradford. And there, when God baptised everybody in the Holy Ghost and there was real revival moving, I used to get so much money in a secret box that I insisted they gave me so much and I don't want to rob the church. I said, it's the only time I've had a regular wage. It didn't last long. But that's the thing, only because I could feathered my nests, whatever you call it, bought the Rolls-Royce perhaps, which so many do. Money. Did you ever hear anything worse that for money, a man sold God the Son? That's where it all belongs. Listen, beloved, you can't be a hireling. Say, come and preach in our church, we give you a thousand dollars a week or something as your wage. I'm the beautiful shepherd. He's talking beautiful language here. Wonderful, beautiful truth, loved in heaven. Father thought he was wonderful and all the angels would have said, holy, holy, holy. Beloved, some of us haven't even got our skirts clean. Don't fashion your ambitions on money. And that's all the education will produce in you in the end. It's an unto an end where you will get a good job. You won't have to swing an axe for your living or something. Don't you see? If you've been already flattered or seduced by it, I want to bring you back to virginity. Here's the marvelous thing. Oh, I've come that you might have life abundantly, more abundantly than you have at the present. I'm the beautiful shepherd. He that isn't hiring, not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not. See if the wolf cometh, leaves the sheep, and fleeth, and the wolf catches them, scattereth the sheep. You know why that man does that? Because he's a hireling, see? A hireling fleeth simply because he is what he is. It's according to the nature that's in you, my precious brother and sister, you'll act by that. Who you are, what you are, is much more important than what you do. Or say, no, it's bound to influence us. We've got to get beyond secondary things. You know, the real foundation is laid there, for out of foundation can no man make, but Jesus Christ, he said, Paul, we've all got to get back there, and then there will be world revival. I'm not just speaking of we in this room, but the Christian church everywhere. You'll run away if you're just a hireling, when the wolf comes. And perhaps I'm talking to would-be pastors or preachers or something like that in the future. You'll run away, you'll quit. But here's the thing, let me say this again to you, it regularly comes up when I'm preaching along these lines, that I know people being through university, and then they've left university and they've gone to be trained in a Bible college, not just a worker's program. And off they go, and they come out with degrees, and they come out top of the lot. Beloved, alright. Then one day, I might go into a city, I'm talking from experience now, I won't say which it was, and I find that they're selling shoes. Yeah, they got a good job in an office. Waste of time. Sheer waste. And you are responsible for time. Not to give it, but for the time you live on this earth. Time belongs to God, he invented it, I didn't. It's a wonderful thing, isn't it? The hireling fears, just simply because he is, in the end, it's what you are that comes up. Everybody sees and knows you in the end, they might not twig you at the beginning. Amen. Because, beloved, you cannot, if you're at least a decent person, act or live contrary to what you are. I'm the beautiful shepherd. He emphasizes that. And beauty, as I say, nothing to do with what better people call you, good looking or not. I am the beautiful shepherd, I know my sheep, and them known of mine, as the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. Now, immediately, you will think of Calvary. It's quite natural, where he laid down his physical life. Now, are you listening? He laid down his physical, bodily life, only momentarily, only for the time he was on the cross. I hope you're not amongst these people who think that the Spirit came back into Jesus at the end of three days and he came out. Now, he went back into the tomb. I don't know whether he lay there for three days, or his body certainly did, obviously. But I know he went and preached to the spirits in prison. He went straight up to his Father. I'm quite sure the Spirit of him went up Father. Father, he said on the cross, into thy hands I commend my spirit. And he went home to Father. Joined his body again after three days. Came out. He's alive, he's alive. He'd never been dead. His body died when he quitted. You must never think that death overcame Jesus. You must never think the cross overcame Jesus. He died, the death of the cross. But the cross to God meant some glorious thing in time and in the whole expanse of eternity. When Jesus redeemed. When Jesus won. He overcame death on the cross. He exhibited it on the third day to men. But he overcame it there. Death didn't kill him. The spear didn't kill him. The crown of thorns didn't kill him. The nails didn't kill him. He's killed the nails. Are you following? I'm figuratively speaking of course. He did it. He did it. May I introduce you to a farming term which some of you will be very au fait with. Farmers used to in my day, I still think they're thinking. I did a term of farming. And they lay a field. That is they sow it with grass. It's all laid for a sheep to come. That's laying. And he laid down his life, not grass, for his sheep. Now it's done in our modern methods by mixing grass seed with the wheat that they sow if they want a field of corn. And lo, they reap the corn and at least stubbles of the corn stalk. But it's already been sown at the very same time when they sowed the grass seed, the corn seed. Thinking of browsing their cattle on it next year. That's the great thing. Now Jesus Christ has laid it for you, my precious sheep brother or sister. And that's when he said you go in and out and find pasture anywhere. You can go anywhere in the world. Live in the remotest spot on earth at the North Pole or South Pole. By the way I don't live at the North Pole. But here is the thing. It's there. And if you can't find fellowship with people, you can have fellowship with God. And if you do it won't be long before there'll be someone else with whom you can have fellowship. It's entirely up to you. I've laid it down. I'm going to lay down my life of course. It's more than the fact that he redeemed us with his blood. It's that he's laid down his life that from that moment of redemption you can feed on him. No matter where you are. I know I fed on him in a prison cell. Didn't know you got an ex-jailbird talking to you, did you? Oh when you have the life of God in you, it's greater than anything. Greater than old age, greater than anything you may run into in your life. In those times God allows us to go through. Not because we're whining, why am I like this? What just happened to me? You see, he matures you in knowledge and understanding of God. Not that we don't have sympathy of course. I wonder what you'd do if you had to bear the afflictions that this man or this woman has to bear. It isn't from God of course. It's from sin. Not personal sin, but from the fact of sin. It's ravaged the race. So tremendous. I lay down my life for you. Your afflictions are great but feed on me. The greatest book next to the Bible ever printed in any language, it certainly was in England, is what came from a prison cell. And the author of it was named John Bunyan. In Bedford jail he wrote that marvellous book. If you've never read John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, you owe it to yourself to read it. Owe it to yourself. Don't die in debt to your own laziness, will you? This is the great thing. Oh dear, I shan't finish by my time. Fancy, I haven't got half way through this chapter yet. But here's the thing beloved, laid down for you. I am the beautiful shepherd, know my sheep, and I am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father. It wasn't a matter of Jesus believed in God his Father, or God his Father believed in Jesus. They knew one another. Knew one another. It's tremendous beloved. My Father loves me. I'm other sheep I have, and this was news to the Jews of course. I have other sheep. Other sheep I have, not I am going to save or win, I have... Listen, do you believe you, if you call yourself a Christian, have been in the heart of God from all eternity? Or did he suddenly learn, oh, she's got converted, isn't that nice? You've been in his heart. You say, how can he be? He's God's friend. How can he do it? How could he make the tides go? You know, oh, we know it's the moon. You see, that's so you put up knowledge that people have discovered by, do this work and you won't take what God says. You can't. It's too big for you. Me too, of course. Unless by the Holy Ghost, the whole of God is opened up to you. And then you learn. And it's so wonderful, that must have shaken them. Other sheep I have, not of this fold. Now, it started with the fold in the parable. So the folds are nations, shall we say? Alright. That's why I got rid of being an Englishman. In my thinking, I have to pay my taxes and my dues and all that sort of thing. Well, I'm not an Englishman. I realise that's the causes of war. That's the cause of war. Russia goes to war with England. England goes to war with America. Or so and so and so. This is what history is all about. Told according to the thoughts and attitudes and biases of the historian. The English tell us as they want to know. Us to know it. The Germans talking about the last war, would talk about it. Not the historians. Like you do. And I do. And you can take that in any case. You have to get it through the minds of men and women perhaps, who are not of God. This book has come from God. We've got it right. And you can see if you study what it's all about. Jesus has destroyed nationalities. And if you cling to your nationality and think that's the summum bonum of everything, you'll go to hell. God's not going to have divisions, national or otherwise, in heaven. You understand it. You get rid of it. All that lot. I speak to you as one who has done it. This is where the greater glories lies. There. He's listening to it. Them also I must bring. And you know what? Read verse 17. Don't just listen to me. Therefore doth my Father love me when we are one flock. Of course the word flock is really flock in the Greek. That's the word that was written down originally. There shall be one flock and one shepherd. Would you imagine that's true as you look over the world today? Over the churches and over everything else? I don't know. That's why my Father loves me. Verse 17. Do you want to really be loved of the Father? Not just taking it for granted but feel that love and know that love. Can I give you an illustration? This is not a boast but I'm sharing with you the truth. This lady's known me a long time. Sometimes she must get tired of hearing my illustrations over and over again. And I haven't read these. I've lived them. Listen. I had a stroke. Don't look at it. I'm OK. You can see I'm OK. And I fell twice in my bath. And I said to my daughter. This was two years ago or about now. I was going out to see my sister. I couldn't go around preaching for a while. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't sit at home twiddling my thumbs. I went to see my sister. OK. But before I went. About the day before. I think it was the very day I was going. I spoke to the daughter that lives with me now. And I said you know I really shall have to stop having a bath. I've fallen twice in it. I think I'd like to get a shower instead. That's all I said. I never asked God for a shower. You have to be careful. He's listening to what you say. You get away with nothing. And you lose far more than you get away with. That's all I said to my daughter. I've been in Australia. That's all I said. It was breakfast. I said I really must get a shower there when I get home. I've been in Australia about a month. I got a letter from my Judith. She said Dad. You've had two thousand pounds given you. I said go ahead and put in the shower. But I never asked. I never asked Father. Remember that he knows what you have need of before you ask. Don't get into verbosity. Be careful. He was listening. When I said that to my daughter he was listening. I've given you the latest illustration. I could give you others. But that's it. So I don't need to ask God for anything. You don't ever become a hireling. Beloved, them that honour me will I honour. Says this book. And it's a tremendous thing. Don't go to display your gifts. Or your talents. Or your pounds if you want to use those kinds of illustrations. Just go everywhere in love with God. And especially in love with the manifestation of God in Jesus Christ. That's it. And the world will change for you. Your circumstances will change. Though around you they never do. But it's the circumstances of your heart and mind that count with God. And sometimes he leaves you lingering a while. Until you learn that lesson. I'm not finished. But I've got to end. So that you can have a cup of coffee. Thank you Lord and thank you everyone. Amen.