I kind of want to talk tonight about if a man is born again, can he not know Jesus? You know, there's some teaching today that kind of says that a man can be born again and not know what's happened to him. And so I thought I would kindly talk about that tonight. I know I've talked about it before, but it's been a while. And how people can explain that to me, I don't know how they come to those thoughts that a man can be born again and not know Jesus Christ as his Lord. The Bible teaches very vehemently that when you're born again of the Spirit of God, and you're a child of God, that you'll know Christ Jesus as your Savior. And I know in my experience with the Lord, I had a head knowledge of who He was. I knew His name. I knew the Lord. I had a head knowledge of Him, but I didn't really know Him as my Lord and Savior. But the Bible teaches me in the book of John that we'll know Him and His love to us. We'll know that He is our Savior. There's a lot of people in the world that's got a misconception that you know God, but don't have to know Jesus Christ. Well, the Bible teaches me that you'll know God, you'll know Jesus Christ, you'll know the Holy Spirit, the three in one. co-equal in power, co-equal in love. I believe that we'll know who He is, and we'll know His love, and we'll feel that love. Over in John, I believe it's the tenth chapter, and we'll just start there. And Jesus answered them, I told you, and you believe not. Well, he's talking to some folks here that didn't know him as the Christ. 1025, I told you and you believe not the works that I do in my Father's name. They bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep." Now, this is pretty plain that not everybody knows the Lord. They may know His name, but not everybody knows Him in their hearts. And you can't know the Lord in your heart until He borns you again. You can't know Him. the knowledge of his name. You may know him, have head knowledge of him, but you can't really know him and know of his salvation and his love to you. You don't have a personal relationship with him if you don't know him in heart. But you believe not because you are not of my sheep as I said unto you. Very profound. The Lord is telling these folks, you don't know me. You're not of my sheep. And if he tells these folks they're not of his sheep, they're not the children of God. Just plain and simple. A lot of people would say, well, you know, that would be an unjust God that would choose some and not choose others. Well, God is not unjust. God is just in whatever decision He made before the foundation of the world. And He says that He chose us and Him before the foundation of the world, and I think He just left the rest alone. He left them where they was at. Because God knows who's His, who was His before the foundation of the world. He goes on to say, He says, Now listen to this, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. They follow Me. My sheep, when you've been born again in the Spirit of God, you hear the Lord's voice. And you keep on hearing that voice all through your spiritual life, don't you? God raiseth the dead. The Lord raiseth the dead. And they're not dead anymore. When God speaks to us, we come alive. We come alive. When God speaks and gives us the Holy Spirit, we are alive in Christ. The Holy Spirit doesn't make us a child of God. It just reveals unto us that we are the children of God, and every child of God will have the Holy Spirit. That's plain and simple. He's not going to elect you or select you and not born you again. You know, we hear people say, all you have to do is call upon the Lord. Call upon the Lord and He'll come unto you. Well, that's not going to happen. You can't call upon the Lord until the Lord first reveals Himself unto you, and then you call upon the Lord. He says, My sheep hear My voice. So God speaks. And this is a voice that we can't reject. This is something that we can't deny. This is something that is all-powerful. And when God speaks unto us, we come and we accept what God I've never talked to anybody who has ever been born again in the Spirit of God wish that they hadn't been. You know, I wish God had never spoke to me. I've never heard a child of God say that, a true child of God. I'm glad the Lord spoke to me. I'm glad that I know the Lord Jesus Christ is my Savior. I'm glad to know that my salvation is secure and that He died for me. I have a personal relationship with my Lord and my God, and each one of us who are the children of God do have that relationship with God. If you don't have a relationship with the Lord, then you're either not a child of God or He's not called you yet. You've not been born again of the Spirit of God. Every, and you've heard me say this so many times, every child of God will be born again sometime in this life. And God has a chosen time. It's not your time. You can't choose God until He chooses you, chooses to awaken you, to let you know that you are His. A lot of people have got the cart before the horse today. All you have to do is accept Jesus Christ as your Savior. I found a little thing in my tomato box today. I've been selling a few tomatoes outside the road. I'm not trying to run Sister Mabel out of business or nothing, but I found a little note from the First Baptist Church today in one of my tomato boxes. And it said, Do you know if you die today that you're going to heaven? Do you know if you die today, I believe God's people know most of the time that they are a child of God. I believe that they know most of the time that heaven and immortal glory is going to be their home. Because if we're loving Christ and we know that we are a child of God, there's nothing to keep us from going to heaven, is it? Now, the devil tries to convince us sometimes, maybe that, well, you're not a child of God, or the Lord wouldn't have you in all these situations that we go through in life. Well, that's just part of, that's part of nature, that's part of natural life, that we're going to, we're going to go through these things. And nobody has ever been upon this earth who is a child of God, hasn't went through trials and tribulations in their life. We're going to go through them. But there's one good thing that we know when we go through trials and tribulations in this life, that we can go to the Lord. We have a Father who will listen to us and who will answer our prayers. It may be yes, it may be no, it may be wait a little while, and who will give us grace to go through these things. I believe in my heart that I'm secure in Jesus Christ my Lord. As I read the Word of God, I believe that I have something within me that is godly. Now, this fleshly body is probably not too godly, but the Spirit of God which dwells within us tells us that we are, that God is our Father, our Father God. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." If you've ever seen the evidence of the Lord in your life, then you're a child of God. If you've seen that evidence and if you've felt it in your heart, you are a child of God. You are a chosen one. And the evidence is that we know, you know, it says over And John, I believe it is, we know we pass from death into life because we love the brethren. Now, that's not just a natural love. That's a spiritual love. That is something that is supernatural, I believe. That is something that is precious and momentous and it's something, oh, it's just a great love that we have or we should have for one another because it is the love of God in our hearts for one another. We pass from death unto life because we love the brethren and the sisters. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. They follow me. You know, I was thinking over in John, the 17th verse of St. John, I believe it's the second or third chapter, it says when Jesus was praying, over there. And he said that he should give eternal life to as many. It didn't say the whole endemic world. He said to as many as thou hast given him. To as many. Not everybody is a child of God. You know, you hear some people say, well, God loves everybody. God loves, He loves everybody in the whole world. And gives everybody a chance. The Lord never did do nothing by chance. first of all. And the Lord don't love everybody. He says He don't. He says He don't love the wicked. He don't love the unrighteous. He said, Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated. Well, people try to explain that way that He just loved Jacob a little bit more than He did Esau. Well, that's not what the Word of God says. He said, Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated. And I believe that's exactly what it meant. So he didn't offer life, but he gave life. And he gave it free. Nothing you can do, nothing you could do, nothing you have done, nothing you will ever do will give you eternal life. Only God. Nothing that you can do. You see that most people have got the horse before the cart today. They say you've got to do your work in order to get to heaven. You've got to do good works. Well, our works is just filthy rags, what we would do. So you can't bring life to yourself. You can't, a preacher can't preach life into you. But we love to hear the Word of God. We love to hear the preaching of the Word of God because we have life. If you love God's Word and you love to hear the preaching of the Word of God, then you have life. Not for argumentable purposes, not to try to sold discord or anything like that, we want to hear the Word of God in order to learn more about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now, I'm not saying we shouldn't take the Word of God and try to prove something, but I don't believe in all this fussing and fighting and arguing and disagreeing with other people. I say just leave them alone. You know, if you can't convince somebody. You know, that's just like when we come to the house of God. Once we have preached the Word to you over and over again, and if you don't listen to it, then I don't think that we're responsible anymore. If you're not going to listen to what the Word of God says, and if you're not going to listen to what the preacher says, are we still responsible? After so long a time? I don't think so. You know, there's something wrong. But probably, I don't know what it could be because why would, well, I know some people come to church for different things. I hope that's, I don't think that that's happening here. But I know of difficulties in the different churches who, that some of them I have visited and been around. And, you know, all they want to do is kind of argue and fuss. Take, you know, just don't want to live in peace. The church should be a peaceful place where we can sit down and worship the Lord. He says in the 28th verse, after he says, my sheep shall hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life. I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hands. My Father which gave them Me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand." That is wonderful, to be able to know and to read that and to understand it with the heart that God has given us. It's just, you know, it's beyond words to be able to speak and to really understand how the Lord could love us so much and gave His life for us. There's no free will. There's no free will in eternal salvation. No free will. It's all the will of God. All you have to do is let God come into your heart. Let God come into your heart. I've never known that God was so weak that He can't come into your heart on His own. And if you're a child of God, He will. You know how a little old simple man is going to keep God from coming into his heart? How are you going to keep God from born in you again? Again, I don't know God's people. They want to be with the Lord. They want to be able to fellowship with God. God doesn't need any permission to do His will in our lives. Whatever God wants to do, He doesn't need our permission. All right, Lord, You can do whatever You want to with me. God doesn't need our permission to change us. He comes into our hearts at the time He chooses, not we choose. As we read a little bit further over in the 14th chapter of John, he says, But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach us all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." God, the Holy Spirit is, you know, some people say, well, you'd be born again and not know God, or not know Jesus. But he says here, the Father will send it in my name and he shall teach you all things. He shall teach you about God's love, every child of God. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. The Bible says that. The spirit of God being born again awakens us. and reveals. This is not a deaf and dumb spirit. This is a revealing spirit to make us to know the love of God and the greatness of God and to awaken us to and reveals unto us that we are the children of God. It's the greatest awakening I've ever had. I've been awakened a lot of times with different things through the night. But this is the greatest awakening I ever had in my life, and in your life it probably has been too. I can remember the day when God touched my heart. I hope I never forget it. It's probably a day, one of the greatest days in my life. It is the greatest day, not one, but the greatest day. I've had a lot of good days in my life. But the day that the Lord stepped in and the day that the Lord revealed unto me that He was Lord of Lords and King of Kings and that He loved me, that is the greatest day in my life, to know I'm a child of Father God and He loves me. What a great awakening when we've been When God touches our hearts, we think different, we talk different. And some even say we might look a little different because we're happy or we should be happy in the Lord. Walk around with a smile on your face and the bounce in your toes, in your feet, saying, I am a child of the Father God. I am a child of the King. We are happier in our lives after the Lord has revealed Himself unto you. The Spirit of God is a divine thing that happens to us, and it can only come from the Lord. It is an operation. that God does upon us. He takes the old hard heart and He gives us a heart of love. He doesn't leave a scar where He operates on us. He's a great physician. He took the old heart and He's put a new heart. And we know Him and His love. As we think about the Comforter, And what he was telling these saints of God here, he says, But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, and shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. You know, I remember when Jesus was speaking to Thomas and he was teaching the disciples about what they should go out and preach and teach to God's people. And they had to be taught. They had to be taught because they didn't know about the Lord. They had to be taught about the Lord, just as we had to be taught. about the Lord in the sense that we, through the Word of God, we're taught who He is and what He is and what He's done for us. And it tells us what He did. As He talked to Thomas and speaking to Thomas, He said, and Jesus said unto him, speaking unto Thomas, I am the way. I am the way. There's no other way. A lot of people trying to climb up some other way through religious orders and religious things to get to God. You can't get to God no other way except through Jesus Christ. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto me. unto the Father except by me. Except the Father draw him. You see, it's God's work. It's the Lord's work. Not anything that we can do. You know, you've got all the people who pray to different gods and they pray to the Mother Mary. You've got all the people who Just religion is all it is. I want God's religion. I don't want man's theology. I don't want man's religion. But I want God's theology. I want to be able to worship Him in spirit and in truth. Folks today don't know the Lord. Folks don't know God. They don't really know Him because they don't They're trying to climb up some other way. We read over in, turning back to chapter 10 of John, verse 1. He says, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door, unto the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them." You see, the Lord goes before us and makes a way for us. He makes the way for us. He clears the path, in other words. And he says, "...a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him." For they know not the voice of a stranger." Then over in John the fifth chapter, if you want to turn over there, and just to, it says in the twenty-first verse, he says, in the fifth chapter. For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quicketh them. You see where we get our He quicketh. God the Father quicketh us, the dead. We are dead as a doornail spiritually until God the Father quickens us. And quickens them even so the Son quickens whom He will. Then down in the 23rd verse he says that all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father which hath sent him. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life. and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life." Has passed from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour cometh, and now is, when the dead, and this is not talking about the dying physically, it's spiritually, but you'll be awakened spiritually. When the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." We have a good life today because we've heard the voice of the Son of God. We have a wonderful life. We know the Lord. We know Him as our Father God. Now just to, in closing tonight, I just want to read you a couple of episodes, maybe three, to prove that God's people know Him no matter what. No matter where they're at or what they do, God will awaken them, and they will know the Lord Jesus Christ is their Savior. I don't know how much of the gospel a child of God needs to hear. I think he should hear all he can of it. But I think just as I read about the thief on the cross, and this is one of the places I want to go. I believe it's over in, let me look here just a minute. Well, let's go to chapter 5 of Mark first. And we find the wild Gadarene, I believe it is here, as they had been shipwrecked and they, the Gadarenes, but he, in the 15th verse, Here is a wild Gadarene, the wild man in the tombs, and he didn't know anything about Jesus Christ at this time. And listen to what he says. And they came to Jesus to see that was possessed with the devil and had the legions sitting in his clothe and in his right mind. Well, that's not where I wanted to go. Let's go start at chapter 1. And they came over unto the side of the sea unto the country of Gadareth. And when he had come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. Now, he had an unclean spirit. A man with an unclean spirit. Just show you how powerful God is, and to show you how He will change a child of God, who had His dwellings among the tombs, and no man could bind Him, no, not with chains, because that He had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by Him and The fetters broken into pieces, neither could any man tame Him. Neither could any man tame Him. Only God can tame us. Only God can tame the wild Gatoran. And always, night and day, He was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying and cutting Himself with stones. But when He saw Jesus afar off, He ran and worshipped Him and cried, with a loud voice and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the Most High God? I adjure thee by God that thou torment me not. For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit." You know, we are kind of like the wild Gadarene is before we have been born again. We have got an unclean spirit. God brings that out of us and puts the Spirit of God in us. Here was a man that didn't know who Jesus Christ was. And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered and said, My name is Legion, for we are many. And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country. Now there was there Now into the mountains a great herd of swine. Here's where they cast the devils into the swine and they ran off the cliff and drownded. And I asked a preacher one time, I said, well, what happened to the evil spirits after the swine had drownded? He said they went off to aggravate somebody else. Then in the fifteenth verse he says, And there came to Jesus to see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legions setting, and clothed, and in his right mind. You see what the Lord can do? Here was a man that did not know Jesus Christ as his Lord, but now he knows him. Matter of fact, if you read on further down, he wanted to follow Jesus. But Jesus told him, he said, you go and tell what things I have done. And I believe he went into the city and preached what Jesus had done for him. You see, he knew Jesus. All right, we'll take Mother Mary, we'll call her Mother Mary. Not that I'm Catholic, but she is a mother. When Elizabeth, and we turn over to Luke in closing, in Luke the first chapter, the forty-first verse, And it came to pass that Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, and the babe leaped in her womb." You see, Mary was going to have a child who was Jesus. Here's Elizabeth, a babe not even born, John the Baptist, not even born yet, but when he heard, She was with child. It says that he leaped in his mother's womb. He knew Jesus. He knew. He knew Jesus. Here's a child. And, you know, here's a little child not been born yet. But he knew who Jesus was. Of course, we know that John the Baptist went on to preach the gospel. So it doesn't matter. God can awaken the wildest person. He can awaken a little babe in the mother's womb to know Jesus Christ as Lord. God has all power. So I don't believe what some people teach about you can only Know God. You don't have to know Jesus Christ. You just have to know God. I don't believe that. I believe you have to know Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. May the Lord bless and keep you is my prayer. Number 30. Let's stand and sing number 30. The white one.