<TITLE>07. Par 34-40</TITLE>L-34 What is any prettier than late of an evening to hear the old turtledove set out there and coo awhile? After I lost my wife and baby... I wouldn't let no one know what I was doing. I used to get in my old car. I'd drive out across the road here, go out here at Walnut Ridge graveyard, set up there by the side of a tree, and look down at the grave. I just couldn't give them up. Looked like I couldn't stand it any more. I laid my little baby, laying there, eight months old. How she used to hold her little hands and would reach for me, and I'd blow the horn or say something to her, and she'd "goo-goo," reach her little hands out. I'd set down by the side of a tree, especially when it would become evening. And there used to be an old dove that would set out there in the bush; she would go to cooing. Oh, my. I once wondered if it was the immortal soul of my baby coming back to try to speak to me. Nothing sweeter than that cooing of the dove, how she's loving. She brings tidings. How she tries to make peace. Get up early of a morning, go out in the thickets there close to where I live, what a peaceful thing it is to listen: setting up on that great tall tree, those doves cooing to one another.

L-35 The other day down at Brother Cox's, an old mother dove had two little babies. And they set right up on top of the building, so the cats couldn't get them. And the old mother dove would feed them. Then she'd come down and get them and make them get up in the tree, and they would set there with their necks around one another, and coo and make love all day long, two little, gentle baby doves.
And I thought of how God (of the dove is such a loving bird) and the Dove, God, wanting to make love with His human beings... God wants to be loved. God wants to love you. "God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but to have Everlasting Life." Blessed be the Lord. Then God, wanting to make love, He had to some--make something lovable. He had to make something gentle like Himself. He had to make something that could be loved. He had to make something of His own nature.

L-37 You couldn't love nothing that wasn't of your own nature. Loving has to unite with love. A husband and wife has to love one another, if they ever make the grade. Family has to love one another, if they ever make the grade. Something to be loved... You search everywhere, find a girl to be your wife that you love. She searches, finding a husband that she could love.
And God searches, trying to find a soul that He can love. So He represented Himself here on earth as a gentle Dove and a gentle Lamb. If a--that Lamb would at one minute ever taken on the nature of a snarling wolf, that Dove would've took Her flight immediately; she'd have got away.

L-39 But the--the--the lamb, it doesn't have any great minds of its own. A lamb is one thing, when it's lost, it's hopelessly lost. A sheep can't find its way back. That's the reason the goat leads it to its death. It can't find its way, a sheep that's lost. That's the reason God likened us unto sheep. When we're lost, we are lost. There's no way we could find ourself. And there's only one way to do it; that's submit ourselves to the Shepherd of the flock, and He does the leading.

L-40 Now, as I notice this Lamb and the sheep together--the Lamb and the Dove, rather, together; they made one. Then watch how the Dove led the Lamb, the Son of God. How gentle He was, knowing that He was going to the slaughter. How gentle He was to always not to try to do Himself, not to try to be self-sufficient. He said, "I do nothing until the Father shows Me first, and the Father dwells in Me."


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