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The Amish Voice 2
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good; but they do not make a new
creature. If we are born of God, then we
have power, and will overcome the
world. Now I find there are a great many
people that, the moment we touch on
regeneration and the new birth, say: "I
have heard people tell the day and the
hour when they were converted; but I
never had that experience. I cannot point
to a day or an hour when God met me,
and when old things passed away."
Therefore they are in great trouble, for
fear they have not been
converted. Let me say, right here,
that it is of little account when or
where it took place, and you can
soon find out whether it has taken
place or not.
Some people are converted like
the flashing of a fireball; with
others it is like the rising of the
morning sun, and you cannot tell
the minute it was light. But if
they have passed from death unto
life, they can soon tell by reading
the Word of God whether they
have been born again or not.
So it is not necessary for us to be
able to tell when or where this
birth took place; but it is very important
that we should be able to say that we are
new creatures in Christ Jesus; that we
have been born of the Spirit, because
Christ gave no uncertain sound about this
thing. He said, Except a man be born
again, except he be converted, except he
become as a little child, he cannot see the
kingdom of God. We have to come like
little children into his kingdom. So it is
very important to search the Scriptures,
and see whether we have been born again
or not.
The next new thing we get is a creation
.
It says in the 5th chapter of 2nd
Corinthians, 17th verse: "
Therefore, if
any man be in Christ, he is a new
creature; old things are passed away;
behold, all things are become new.
"
There was a man converted when we
were in New York. He was an awful hard
case; he had been drinking a great many
years. He was a Frenchman, came from
Canada. He had been brought up from his
childhood to drink; and he never saw any
harm in it till he drank his family all
away from him; and there he was, a
wanderer. He came into one of the
meetings, and some friends talked with
him, and got down and prayed with him.
The moment he began to ask God for
mercy, God blessed him right there.
When he got up, he did not know
himself. He was a new man in old
clothes. He has held on ever since; his
appetite for strong drink is gone; and he
has become a new creature in Christ
Jesus. It takes away the love we have for
this world, and the desire for sin.
We cannot receive the spiritual blessings
that God wants to give us, if we are not
born of the Spirit. It says in 1st
Corinthians, 2d chapter, 14th verse: “
But
the natural man receiveth not the things
of the Spirit of God; for they are
foolishness unto him; neither can he
know them, because they are spiritually
discerned?
"
The moment you begin to talk to some
people about spiritual things, they say, "I
don't understand them;" and it is a sign
they have not been born of God. I can
tell, when I am preaching, that
they do not understand a word I
say. The Word of God is all a
myth to them, it is all
foolishness to them. They do
not believe the word of God.
But the moment a person is
born of the Spirit, he receives
the Word of God into his heart,
and so gets strength.
The
natural man receiveth not
spiritual things
.
Then, the next thing that we
get with this new birth is a
new nature.
We become
partakers of the Divine nature.
If we have a nature that is
Godlike and Christlike, a nature that
longs for God and spiritual things, it is an
evidence that we have been born of the
Spirit. The old nature may remain, does
remain, but we get a new nature; we
serve God, and we cannot serve him
without that nature. This new nature must
have a new God. Everyone in your
neighborhood has some god; if not the
God of heaven, some idol that has been
made into a god. We have new hopes,
new aims, new desires, new aspirations
then. Old things have floated away; and
we have something better. The new