The Plain Truth is so Happy That You Have Been Enjoying Bob’s Broadcasts.
2000 years ago, a newscaster that we know of as Jesus Christ warned us about false Christianity. The warning was not against the devil but against false Christianity…about people who come in His name and deceive many.
Hi everyone, Bob Barney with The Plain Truth Today, and today is a very special day for The Plain Truth and its listeners, because today is what is called the Feast of Firstfruits. This is the day after the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when you can start having bread with yeast in it. As a matter of fact, you could have started that at sunset last night. Even though the day begins in the morning, the Feast of Unleavened Bread goes from evening to evening on its holy days, like Christmas Eve becomes Christmas Day, and at Christmas night nobody follows it.
It’s the same idea. But anyway, today is the Feast of Firstfruits, and I want to just simply and quickly, and not bore you to death, of what it means. Born again is a term that so many Christians use and throw around because they said they get this thing, Jesus says you must be born again, and so if Jesus says I must be born again, then I’m going to be born again, even though they didn’t read the whole scripture and understand what it means to be born again. And what today is about is about the born-again experience. That’s the best way to put it. Today is all about being born again, and there is a line in the Bible, you can put this in your concordance, or you can put it in your search engine, and you can put in the term firstborn of the dead, and you’re going to find out that’s referring to Jesus Christ.
Let’s go the first time in all of world history someone heard the word born again, and when that person heard it, he thought of it like you should think of it. He didn’t have any of these religious ideas of what born again meant like we have today. So there was a man of the Pharisees, this is John chapter 3, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus. He was a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night, and he came by night because he didn’t want to be seen, because he was afraid he would be in trouble with his cohorts, and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher and come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. You realize, just on a side note, that all of the people that crucified Jesus after the fact, all of these high priests, and priests, and the Levites, and Pharisees, they all, we know is what that verse said, that you’re from God. They knew what they were doing. They have no excuse for their guilt. Just point that out to you. Jesus answered him and said, verily, verily, I say unto you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. First time that term was ever used. And Nicodemus did what you would do if you never heard that term before.
And Nicodemus understood exactly what Christ meant, where people today do not understand what Christ meant. And Nicodemus said, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born? He knew exactly what Jesus is saying, and he had the right answer. He had the right, or the right question to the whole idea of being born again. Then Jesus goes on, most assuredly, or verily, verily, I say unto you, unless one is born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. Got a question. Were you born of flesh or were you born of spirit? I think you know you were born in the flesh. What is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. You weren’t born of the spirit. You’re not born again. You’re not of the spirit. And here’s more proof of that. He goes on, do not marvel that I said you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes. You can hear the sound of it, but you can’t tell where it comes from or where it’s going. So is everyone who is born of the spirit. Now, are you invisible like the wind? Can you travel like the wind and be here, there, and nobody can see you? Well, Jesus said, if you were born again, you’ll be that way.
Guess what?
When Jesus was born again, He was that way.
He could appear in a sealed room. He could walk through walls. Nothing could restrain him. He was invisible when he wanted to be. He could change his appearance because he’s born again. Nicodemus answered and said, how can these things be? And Christ said, are you a teacher of Israel and you don’t understand these things? Verily, I say unto you, we speak of what we know and testify what we have seen, and you do not receive our witness. I f we have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe in the heavenly things I’m going to tell you? And then he makes a statement. I’m going to end here because it goes into other things. No one has ascended to heaven, but he who came down from heaven, that is the son of man who is from heaven. The idea that Elijah went to heaven, Enoch went to heaven is not true. They went to the first, there’s three heavens talked about in the Bible, the air that airplanes fly in. Every time you get on an airplane and you fly from New York to LA, you’re in heaven. You’re in the first heaven. That’s where Enoch went. That’s where Elijah went.
They went, you know, when you see about Enoch, he went into heaven on a chariot of horses, flaming horses, because he’s like on an airplane, a God-inspired airplane that was moving him around. The second heaven is where the moon is, where Saturn is, where the stars are, and that’s the universe heaven. And the third heaven talked about, and Paul talks about the third heaven, that he went there either in a vision or in reality he did not know, that is where God lives. There are not seven heavens, there are three heavens. So when you’re hearing people saying that Enoch went to heaven or Elijah went to heaven, no one’s gone to heaven but Jesus, number one. Jesus also makes a statement in the book of John many times that no one has ever seen God the Father or heard His voice at any time. More proof of the identity of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ was the Lord God of the Old Testament that wrote the Ten Commandments with His own fingers, who appeared to Moses and the people of Israel as a flaming tornado of fire at night and a tornado of clouds during the daytime. That was the God, the Lord God Almighty, who became Jesus Christ.
Today is His day. Today is the day He is born again. He rose from the dead. He becomes, on this day, He became a spiritual being again. He became God Almighty again. He became the Lord God again. He went and He sat at the right hand of the Father in heaven when He rose to heaven, which happens next week. It’s not a high holiday, but you can read it in the book of Acts. And He was given the place of honor next to God the Father, who is the God of gods, and Christ is a co-equal God who put Himself down a step and became lesser of a God than the Father, and in order to show us that we should do the same thing. Man and woman were born equal, but woman lowered herself in order to become a lower subservient to man. That is the biblical way. I know it don’t sound good to a feminist, but that is the godly way. It’s not because she’s inferior to the man.
No one’s going to say that Jesus Christ is inferior to God the Father. They were born, the woman and man are born equal, but the woman becomes subservient to man upon marriage. Same thing. The Lord Jesus Christ in the old days, in the Old Testament days, was equal to God the Father. He was the spokesman of God, the spokesperson of God, and it tells you in the book of John, He created everything all by Himself. He created everything for Himself. But when He became a human being and was born again today, 8030, He lessened His role of hierarchy to make an example for us to follow, and that example is you have to have a leader and you have to have someone a little lower than the leader. But He’s on the right hand of God the Father, and this is His day. You follow these holidays so you can remember what your God, Lord, and Savior did for you. He suffered, died, and was born again, and so can you be born again too. At the resurrection, at Christ’s return, if you want to be, all you got to do is ask Christ for it. Ask Christ to take over and run your life and obey, and when you obey the best you can, and when you start to read the Bible more and you agree to obey, little by little you’re going to keep learning things, and the things you’re going to learn is, you know, I got to do this, and I didn’t want to do that, and that’s why I didn’t want to listen to Bob, but now I find out I got to do this, and eventually you become convicted. If you’re really a child of God, right now you’re a zygote, you’re like a fetus, and by the way, the word born again in Greek is genau, which is the entire birth process from the sperm hitting the egg to the zygote to the fetus to the birth. That’s what the actual Greek word genau means that Christ used when he said you must be born again. Just a side note for those people that want to know all the Greek words or all the background of everything, but that’s what we are today.
We’re like a fetus, and when we are born again, when we come out that birth canal, and on the day of the resurrection of our death, on the millennium, beginning of the millennium, when Christ returns and calls us out of our graves, then we’re born again, and this will be our day too, but that’s really Pentecost. We’re getting into that on the day of Pentecost. Hopefully you can take today off, and hopefully you can remember what God’s doing for you today, tomorrow, yesterday, and forever, if you allow him.
Bob Barney, for The Plain Truth saying thank you, may God bless you richly, and we’ll see you again tomorrow. Bye-bye.