<TITLE>10. Par 39-40</TITLE>L-39 The people say, "I have to do this to keep my standard with the people." You don't have to do it. It shows a shallowness. It shows a cowardliness. And a preacher that'll stand in the pulpit and compromise on the principles of Christ because some bunch of bishops dominate him and tell him, 'You have to do this, or we'll put you out of fellowship,' you're a coward. Stand there. Tell the truth, no matter what the price is.
Look at Stephen that morning, our little Holy Ghost brother, standing before the Sanhedrin cancel--Council. The 7th chapter of Acts, said, "You men of Israel, you that dwell in Judaea," and so forth, how "our fathers come up out of Mesopotamia," and so forth: begin to tell them. Then he got wound up, got started. The Holy Ghost come upon him. He said, he shined. 
His face shined like an Angel. He said, "You stiffnecks, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always do resist the Holy Ghost. Like your fathers did, so do you." Whew. Hm. He knowed where he was standing. He knowed his position.
His face might not have shined like a light up there, but an Angel knows what He's doing. An Angel is a Messenger that's commissioned from God. He don't have to take down. He knows exactly. And them half a million howling wolves of clergy out there condemning that man for the way he was doing, and the sermons he was preaching, and Stephen stood there, and said, "You're uncircumcised of the heart and ears, and you resist the Holy Ghost like your fathers did. So are you doing the same thing." He was telling them the way back to the God that opened up the Red Sea, or tell them--to the God who rained the plagues down in Egypt.
But they didn't want to take the way back, so they stoned the messenger. You don't get rid of it that way. It still hangs on. The one that witnessed become one of them pretty soon: Paul. That's right. Yes. They haven't tried the toxin.

L-40 You know the reason they do it? They're afraid of that new birth, I mean the real new birth. Oh, everybody say, "Sure, I believe you must be borned again. Yes, sir." Yes. But when it comes to the real birth... They believe the new birth by shaking hands, saying a bunch of creeds, or something another. They call that the new birth. That ain't the new birth. They're afraid of the new birth.
Listen. Any birth is a mess. I don't care whether it's in a pigpen, or where it's at, it's a mess, any birth. And so is the new birth. It'll--it'll make you do things that you didn't think you'd ever do. But it brings life. And before you can have life, you have to have death. Before a seed can reproduce itself, it's got to die in order... And not only die, but it's got to rot. In order to get new life out of it, it's got to die and rot in itself.
And so does every sinner. And every man, no matter how highly he's educated, and how much he's polished, how many degrees he has in the church, or so forth, how many of these things, how many colleges he's--he's educated out of; he's got to die to his own theory. He's got to die to himself. He's got to die to everything to be reborned again by the Holy Ghost.
It'll make him cry, and "boo hoo," and speak in tongues, and jump up and down, and carry on like a maniac. But he's got new life. That's what it takes to do it. He's got to have new life. They're afraid of the new birth. The new birth is a mess.


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