<TITLE>16. Par 172-186</TITLE>L-172   Watch. He had to obey it, word by word. "Take off your shoes, Moses. The ground whereon you stand is holy."

L-173 What if Moses said, "Well, now, Lord, I just had some schooling. Honor is 'take off your hat,' so I'll take off my hat"? That would never worked.
When God said, "Shoes," He meant shoes.

L-174 When God said, "Born again," He meant born again. He don't mean a handshake or a repeat of creed. Everybody is scared of that new Birth.

L-175 The Devil substituted a handshake for It, or some kind of a psychic affair, that would make you acknowledge, "Yes, I'm born again." But your life tells what you are, the life that's in you.

L-176 You say you are born of the Spirit of God, and deny one Word of that Bible, it shows you're not. You try to place It back on something else, that shows it wasn't the Holy Spirit, 'cause He would never deny His Own Word. You say, "Well, my church teaches that." There, it shows you're not. You're born of the church, not of God. This is God, His Word.

L-177 Here he is, Moses, the anointed. "Take off your shoes. You're on holy ground."

L-178 "Well, wouldn't my hat do just as well?" He said shoes. And that's what He meant, was shoes.
God says, "Be born again." It means born again.

L-179   Now listen. Oh, I'm in a mixed multitude, and young children. But you'd listen to your doctor. You listen. I hope you listen to me and understand.

L-180 Any birth is a mess. I don't care if it's in the pig pen, or--or it's in a pink decorated hospital room. Any mess... birth is a mess. And so is the new Birth. It's a mess. It'll make you do things you didn't think you'd do. But out of that death and corruption comes forth Life.

L-181   And no seed can bring its life until it's dead and rotten. And out of that rotten mess, when there's nothing else left to rot it, it's only the life that lives. When a son comes to God, he is given tests.

L-182 I stood there that day, I remember, as I took my test. When I'd been days after days, months after months, and years, four or five years on the streets, corners, preaching the Gospel, and trying to do that which was right in God's sight. And He let my wife go right out from under me. My baby laying there, dying. And I got down to the baby, I said, "Lord God, don't let my baby die," eight, nine months old, little baby.

L-183 I looked up, and looked like a black sheet coming down. He even refused to hear me. He wouldn't even look at me. I raised up, about twenty-three years old. There laid the wife in the morgue. He refused to hear me, for her, when all I had done. I said, "God, tell me what I've done. If I've done wrong, punish me, not them." I said, "What have I done? Work all day, and preach all night, and stand on the street corners. And every... What have I done? Tell me what I've done?" He wouldn't even tell me.

L-184   Then Satan come up to my side. He said, "Then you'll serve Him, when one word would change the whole situation? One word will save your baby, but He refuses to do it. He won't do it; when one word. Then you'll go ahead and serve Him?"

L-185 All the human reasoning, that's right. "Why should I serve Him if He won't even as much as just look down at my baby, that'd take all it take? And much as I had thought I done for Him, then He wouldn't even listen to my own baby." That was the hardest temptation. All human reasonings had broke away. "Why should I serve Him if He can't do that much for me? And I go day and night, for Him, and He even refuses to tell me what I done." Well, human reasonings is gone.

L-186   But, oh, when a man is born again, that's something in there that holds. It come down to that spot, when I thought, "Where did I get her? Where did she come from? What am I, anyhow? Where did I come from?" See? All the human part had broke away, then that real genuine Spirit of God laid there.


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