<TITLE>06. Par 20-23</TITLE>L-20 Notice, God making a way. He makes a--a provided way. He called a sheep. I always wondered why we was likened unto sheep in the Bible. I don't know whether there's any sheep raisers here or not, but I've herded a few sheep, was raised partly in cattle herding and everything, in all practically the biggest part of my life. In and out on ranches for, well, since I was a boy.
But if you ever seen anything helpless, is to get a sheep lost. When a sheep's lost, he just simply can't find his way, that's all. He will just stand right there and bleat till the coyotes get him or something; he's just--he's just lost. He's helpless.
And that's the way a man is. When you're lost, brother, I don't care how much reforming you try to do, you're absolutely helpless until the Shepherd come get you. That's... You can't save yourself. There's no way at all that... A leopard could lick his spots just as hard as he could; you could scrub him with sal soda, anything you want to, it'll only brighten the spots. So there's no way we can reform ourself, or lay aside this, or turn a new page; there's only one thing left for us to do, that's accept what the Word said do, be borned again, or lost. That's true now. God, Jesus Christ said that, "Except a man be born of water and of Spirit, he will in no wise enter into the Kingdom." Whether he's little, big, ignorant, or whatever he is, he's got to meet those conditions. Jesus said so.
And you know what a birth is? It's a regeneration, a new creation. A man becomes a new creation in Christ, and by accepting His Word.

L-21 Now we can think of the time... And--and always, the man who takes God's provided way, is always a man who's looked down upon as a fanatic. He's always, through all ages, considered by the world a fanatic. Never, never, in any time, was God religion and salvation of this earth ever popular with the people of the world. He said, "If you love..." The world knows their own. That's right. "If you love the world, the things of the world, the love of God's not even in you." So it's always been a hard struggling way, walking by faith. But the... It's not hard struggling to the man. It's the world looks down upon, say, "Well, these people must be crazy; they act silly." And it's always been that way, because he's accepted the way out that God has provided for him.

L-22 In time of the antediluvian world, could you imagine of father Noah, out there when he, perhaps, come home one afternoon and, from his work (he was a farmer), told his wife, "The Lord spoke to me today and told me to go build a big ark."
"Why," she'd say, "Noah, how could you build a ark? You're a farmer. How could you ever make an ark?"
"Well, God said it was going to rain, and it's going to flood the whole world over, and everybody was going to be drowned. And He told me if I'd follow His Word, I would escape it."
And I tell you, that's the way we always escape, is following God's program. That's the only way we'll ever be able to do it.

L-23 I can see Noah out there building away on this ark, setting out in the middle of a big dry field, where there'd never been a drop of rain fall from heaven. Never had there been anything come out of the heavens as rain, never been a cloud in the skies. And yet, Noah, out there building away on ark, could you imagine how silly that looked? Why, to the carnal mind that man was insane.
I can hear the people coming home from the work in the afternoon, down in--in the city, saying, "Say, you believe that rain story they're telling out there? What do you think about that old crank? Why, isn't that the craziest guy you ever seen? Out there building away on a--on a ark, saying that water's going to fall down from heaven, why, the man's crazy. There's nothing up there. God's always watered through irrigation, down here on... like this. There's no such a thing."


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