heard me say this before—evangelist, hat in hand, trembling outside your door begging to get in.  God doesn’t want some people.  Jesus told a parable and He said ‘If you don’t understand this parable you ain’t gonna understand anything I teach.’  You can’t even be a disciple, which is ‘learner.’  And it was the Parable of the Sower.

Four kinds of soil.  Seed’s the same.  Three of them don’t get it.  One brings forth fruit, good soil.  He then says, explaining the parable, “The reason I tell these truths in parable is lest some—if I didn’t tell it in parable which cloaks the truth some might get it and be saved.”  Now when I think of the ones I don’t want to see in heaven that just delights the...world out of me.  I gotta whole list of people that I don’t want in heaven.  You all can be lucky I’m not the determiner.  But the truth is, and it’s said very clearly, He, Jesus, cloaked the truth in parables because He didn’t want some converted.  “Huh?”  You know, the Church has been hat in hand begging for so long the world thinks that….  You know it’s, it’s like “If I can’t get anybody else I’ll benefit this used woman.”  God’s not that hard up!

I had a kid when I was teaching in college who said “I won’t become a Christian unless God called me to be a preacher.”  I said “Ah, son, relax!  God’s not as hard up as we think.”  But there are criteria of those that are ‘the called’ and that’s what prevenient grace says—the initiative starts with God.  And from the foundations of the world God began making up a number.  You may think it’s an accident, whatever that experience was that turned you on to God.  There are thousands of people that have left the Church but in their deepest heart of hearts they haven’t left God, and neither has He left them.

        The calling and election of God, God’s Word says, is without repentance or ‘turning from.’  And when God has nailed you, however

that light penetrated your heart, there are certain distinguishing marks of ‘the nailed,’ if you’ll have it.  They have that capacity to respond.  They have eyes to see light.  When you turn it on, it brings forth the witness.  And all I’m saying to those people that have felt that call—for want of a better word that tug, that interest, that ability no matter what hits them to not yet give up on some concept of God—trust Him!  That’s all I’m saying.  And then analyze why you’re in your mess because basically.…  I read this verse a thousand times.  I memorized it.  I got points for memorizing it in Sunday school.  I had my interpretation and what a shock it was when I really began to analyze it because I, I knew exactly what that verse said: “Delight thyself  also in the Lord; he shall give thee the desires of thine heart”! 

“Okay, God!  There, you got your part.  Now where’s mine?  Let’s have it now.”  I’ll delight myself in anybody that will give me the desires of my heart.  You ain’t seen a fella that can delight himself in you like I can if you’ll give me the desires of my heart.  And after that first little wave, it’s gonna take a year for me to unload the desires of my heart.  “Delight thyself also in the Lord; he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”  Most Christian truths are paradoxical.  The English language doesn’t know how to deal with that.  We are based on Aristotelian logic, ‘If, then,’ so I was quite ready to delight myself in the Lord, to get.  That isn’t what it says!

There comes a point in any relationship, and ultimately the God of Christian revelation is a person, and in personal relationships—I do not understand this.…  There are three words in the Greek for love.  Eros we can dispense with in a minute—from that comes ‘erotic.’  Everybody knows what that is so I won’t bore you.