Ye Must Be Born Again — Hans R. Waldvogel

The Necessity of the New Birth

And why is it that all of us have not learned to worship God in spirit and in truth? Why is it that there is so much hypocrisy, just for one reason, except a man be born again? You can take a pig to Carnegie Hall to listen to the choir sing the Messiah, but he won't enjoy it.

He might sit there if you give him a nipple to suck from or a wad of chewing gum to chew. He might stay there if you give him something that appeals to the belly of a pig, but he won't enjoy the Messiah.

And you can get people into a Pentecostal meeting and they won't enjoy what's going on at all, unless they're born again. Unless they have repented of their sins and people think they can do just as they please.

Repentance Under the Wrath of God

I tell you why. Because the church today has largely become a circus. The preacher has largely become a clown. And if he doesn't sing a nice song that people like, why they can choose a thousand other churches to go to, if they want to go to church at all, and if they want to have a stand for their conscience.

But God commandeth all men everywhere to repent. That isn't something you can choose. God commands all men everywhere to repent. He says if you don't repent, if you don't believe on the Son of God, the wrath of God abideth upon you.

The wrath of God from heaven is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness of men. All ungodliness. But there's one way, thank God, and that way is Jesus Christ. And he said, marvel not that I said unto you, ye must be born again.

Transformation Into a Child of God

Out of that pig, God has to make a lamb. Out of that sinner, God Almighty has to make a Son of God. Out of that servant of flesh and world and devil, God has to create a righteous man whose delight is in the law of the Lord.

Not because he goes to Sunday school because his mother and father tell him to, or because it's customary to go to Sunday school. Not because he's a Sunday school teacher and studies his lesson five minutes before he goes to Sunday school, so that he'll at least know what it's all about.

But because his delight, ah, he's got a palate for this bread that comes down from heaven. His heart has been touched by the living fire of the Almighty God. How did that happen? He's been filled with the Holy Ghost.

He is interested in heavenly things, and God has blessed him with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. God has enlightened him, has given him an eye which the world cannot have, has made him see the Son of God who is risen from the dead.

And wherever he walks, wherever he goes, he lives in the light of his countenance. He's changed. He's been transformed. He's been born again. He's got the evidence of it. His delight is in the law of the Lord.

Holiness and the Believer's Spiritual Warfare

You don't see him hang around the television set and swallow all that rock that the devil pokes up every day. No, he won't. He'll fire that thing out of his house. He'll fire everything out of the house that's in the way between him and God.

He knows it's a matter of life and death. He knows that unless he puts on the whole armor of God, he is licked. He knows that he lives in a world full of enemies that are more cunning than Hitler and more cunning than any enemy that has ever made war upon this earth.

He knows that he's a raid against all the demon forces of hell, and they're after him because they know that he's going to wear a crown with Jesus Christ. They know that if he makes the grave, he is going to be like the Son of God, and all hell he's got, he's got with an eternal hellish hatred, and that's why the devil has vaccinated the people of this world and backslidden Pentecostal saints with the love of the flesh and the world and whatsoever is born of the flesh and his enmity against God.

It cannot be subject to the law of God. It's impossible. He's got enmity in his heart. That's where our psychology comes from. That's where our philosophy comes from. That's where most of our scientific pursuits have been poisoned by enmity toward God.

The Rejection of Biblical Truth

No reasonable person would today believe in the theory of evolution. I don't believe any reasonable person does, but they propagate it. Why? Because it mustn't be true what the Bible says. It must not be true what the Bible says under any circumstances, and so they fill their libraries with books that are stocked full with enmity toward God, with false lights, with false theology and false philosophy.

It must not be true that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin and that he was God Almighty manifest in the flesh. It must not be true that except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. That must not be true, and so woe unto the man that teaches it.

He's ruled out. Woe unto a student that professes it and confesses it in his school. He's ruled out. They've told me if they don't believe it, they don't make their grades. Even in our school, in this land of the free and this home of the brave, our Father's God, to thee author of liberty, to thee we sing.

Long may our land be bright with freedom's holy light. Protect us by thy might, great God, our king and already beloved. Demons are swarming through this land, defying Almighty God and poisoning the minds of men and women.

Christ the King and the Call to Repent

That's why God commands. Command. Have you repented? Why repent? Why? Because there's a king. God Almighty has put a king upon the throne. A king that is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, made higher than the heavens.

A king who has received a charge from Almighty God, not only to reign, but to subdue all things under his feet, to bring into captivity to the obedience of Christ every part of man. Where are you tonight?

On this last night of 1958, have you repented? Have you repented and bow to his scepter? If you have, I know what's happened to you. God has come to you. God Almighty has come. He has stamped you with the seal of eternity.

He has set you aside to be his own purchased possession and his eyes upon you day and night and his spirit dwells within you and he gives his angels charge over you to keep you in all their ways. And more than that, he said he will be a wall of fire round about you.

The Blood of Christ and Righteousness by Faith

Beloved, if God hadn't put a wall of fire round about me, I wouldn't be here. I know the temptations that come to a young man. I'm not any different from any other man in the world. I know all about that.

But I know something about a savior who commanded me to repent. And who gave me no corner at all. He said, if you live in the flesh, you shall die. I believe it. I believe this word. I believe that when I repent toward God and believe on my Lord, Jesus Christ, that he will take over.

I believe that he is mightier than the devil. I believe that he was made sin for me, that I might be made the righteousness of God in him. Beloved, when God calls for men and women to repent, he points them to the fountain that is open in the house of David.

And it isn't the fountain of blood of bulls and goats and doves, but his own blood. His own blood was poured out on Calvary's cross because nothing would save me but his blood. Nothing would deliver me.

But, oh, there's power in the blood. Hallelujah. Power in the blood to cleanse me from all my sin and to purchase for me the gift of the Holy Ghost. He hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, although they invent the finest telescopes and the finest microscopes.

And with these instruments, they can look into the very bowels of eternity and they can look into the very heart of the atom and they can discover the great, wonderful wisdom and power of the almighty God.

Creation, Human Responsibility, and the Gospel

Oh, how it indicts them, how it ought to convict them. But they have not found God. They have not found the maker. And yet God says they're without excuse because everything they touch, everything they hear with their hearing aid, everything they see with their microscopes and their telescopes, everything that instruments disclose to them, every invention they make, everything that is today become a boastful invention of man is simply the discovery of something that God has placed into his natural creation from the foundation of the world.

How they boast of being able to fly now. The sparrows were able to do that 6 ,000 years ago and they didn't boast of it and they are without excuse. But they have not found God. They haven't found what I have found.

They have not found what God almighty will do to his babe, to those who listen to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The only way of salvation. Beloved, by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourself.

You need a Christmas gift. You need something that comes clear out of hell and makes out of you a heavenly creation, a new creation, a new heart, a new heart. Beloved, let us not criticize those that don't have a new heart.

Prayer for the Unconverted and the Unity of Christ's People

They try to be religious. We often find it with people that are grown up in a Christian church. They're the children. They've been dedicated unto the Lord. But unless they're born again, they have a carnal heart.

And oh, how they sometimes struggle to run along with the saints. They can't. They can't make it. Don't criticize them, but pray for them. And now that a day of prayer and a week of prayer has come, oh, that God might put upon us the spirit of prayer, not only for our assembly, but for the whole world.

We have seen wonderful things take place in Germany again. This year, I just had a letter from one of our wonderful converts. Oh, how happy I was to see a soul rescued out of the depths of sin and today filled with the Holy Ghost, filled with the joy of the Lord.

And there were many like that. And oh, beloved, that's God's way. That's God's way of salvation. And he offers to every man on earth a new heart. And he offers to every man his own spirit. Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent.

Salvation in Christ Beyond Denominational Labels

We wonder how it is when we study church history or the history of the world. The awful, awful, awful things that have happened. When you study the history of Mexico, where they took them by the thousands and thousands and slaughtered them and sacrificed them to their gods, men and women and boys and girls.

We wonder about this Chinaman, this Mongol that came and devastated all of Asia and part of Europe. We wonder about another one, a Mongolian who killed 300 million people in his lifetime or some such number like that.

How is it possible? And when we go to China today and we see what communism is trying to do in China, what communism has been doing in Russia, why is it? Why? Because all places Christ and all the goodliness thereof is as the power of the field.

But everywhere the word of the Lord is creating new lives. Everywhere, men and women are listening to the gospel and bowing to Jesus Christ and accepting his reign. And somebody talked about the coming of the Lord.

Somebody was telling me about a revival that broke out somewhere in Africa under a Roman Catholic evangelist. The Catholic churches put him out because he preaches the gospel. I said, listen, we're going to be greatly surprised when Jesus comes.

He's not going to say, are you Pentecostal or are you Luther or are you Baptist? Are you Protestant or Catholic? But do you belong to Jesus? The Lord knoweth them that are his. He's got them. They're his.

There's no question about it. And hell cannot touch them. Heaven has been dethroned. Satan has been dethroned. Death has been abolished. They're filled with life. They're united to the Son of God who said, I am the resurrection and the life.

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. Marvel not that I said unto you, you must be born again. Jesus said that. And some people don't like that. They say, why do you always harp on that?

The Cross, Resurrection Life, and Final Invitation

Well, I tell you something, Jesus who said you must be born again, also said the Son of Man must be lifted up. And he was willing to die in my stead in order to vow safe to me that divine life. I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly, more abundantly.

And tonight, I don't know how many people that are here that have not broken through. Listen, God's command is to repent because he has appointed the day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that one man.

And that one man is inviting us all to come. And he says, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Who can resist such an invitation, such love? Oh, come, settle it tonight if you haven't settled it yet.

For the gospel that is sent down from heaven and preached in the power of the Holy Ghost. Thank him for that word, though it pierces like a two-edged sword, for it is profitable unto doctrine for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, to make you perfect and to every good work able to do his will.

Bow your soul at the sound of his voice and let that power of his word quicken you in the understanding of the Lord and make you perfect.