The people of God in this age are exactly that—Friends of Jesus Christ. In order to be His friend one must be obedient to His commands. But in order to obey His commands one must know what they are.
How can a person know what the will of God is? Many answer that we must read the Bible. But listen to what Paul says,
For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. I Cor 2:11, 12.
The Bible is one of those things that was given to us by God. So we see that we cannot understand the Bible without having received the Holy Spirit into our hearts. But, although it is admitted that we learn many of Christ's commands from the Bible, there are many things that affect our lives that are not in the Bible, as for instance, if I am saved, if I have the Holy Spirit, where I am to live and serve Him, what I am to wear, etc. How can I obey Christ in these things unless He speaks to me? Listen to the words of Jesus,
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. John 10:27.
And the words of Paul,
But ye have not so learned Christ; if so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus. Eph 4:20, 21.
Clearly, then, in order to be a Friend of Jesus Christ one must be able to hear Him. In order to hear another human being one must be born into this world. In like manner, in order to hear the Holy Spirit's voice one must be born into the spiritual world, or as Jesus said,
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. John 3:3.
The kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom. In order to see that kingdom and to hear words spoken to us in that kingdom, we must be born again spiritually. When we are born into this physical world, we are born with our backs toward God and our mouth full of lies, as saith David in the Psalms. We are by nature children of Satan and enemies of God. In our natural life we do according to our fallen nature—we sin every day in thought, word, and deed. We may become religious, but in our religion we will still sin every day in thought, word, and deed.
We must be born again! These are the words of Jesus Christ. We can never become spiritual and cease from sin unless we experience a spiritual birth. We can never escape from our servitude to Satan unless we are freed from him and his kingdom and translated into the kingdom of Christ. We must enter into the strait way by a sincere repentance and this will lead us to the narrow gate, which is the new birth. That gate is so narrow that we can take nothing of the old life with us as we pass through it. We must drop off all of our old plans, ambitions, friends, ideas, philosophies, and pleasures. We will come forth from that new birth as naked as we were when we were born physically.
After we have been born again, we will begin to hear the voice of our precious Savior directing us in our new life. We will begin to understand the spiritual meaning of the Bible. We will be directed into the Highway of Holiness and led in that path by the Holy Spirit. That way is the only way that leads to eternal life in Christ Jesus. That is heaven on earth because where God's will is done, that is heaven.
We will find that the whole world lies in wickedness, as saith the apostle John in I John 5:19. We will find that the world will hate us because of our renunciation of Satan and his worldly system. We will begin to be taught that the world is fast coming to the end of its road.