A sentence from something that
I read from John Owen many moons ago has fastened itself upon
my mind, and I could no more preach on this than fly to the
moon, and I'm just going to take my clue from that sentence and
turn to the Word of God. I trust I am constrained by the
Spirit of God to do so. The sentence that John Owen uttered,
and I'm not giving Owen as my text, I'm giving Owen as the
pathway into the text of scripture. He said, the two great and damning
mistakes of men with reference to their soul's salvation are
these. One, that they may enter heaven
at last, though they are strangers to the new birth. And two, that
they profess that they have the new birth, though they have not
been made new creatures in Christ Jesus. John Owen, the great theologian,
the greater preacher, and a true pastor, in dealing with the souls
of men, found again and again two delusive errors One, he found
men and women who entertained hopes that they were ready to
die and face eternity, though they were strangers to the new
birth. And he found others who felt
that they had the new birth and were therefore prepared for eternity,
who evidently had not become new creatures in Christ. I believe the human heart being
exactly the same in every age, there are no two greater delusions
in our day, in this assembly tonight, than those two. Believing that somehow God has
constrained me to speak on these lines because He has a word for
some of you who may be under one or the other of those categories,
let us turn to the Word of God. First of all, then, the first
delusion. Is it possible that man can enter
heaven if they have not been born of the Spirit of God? Listen
to the words of Jesus. Speaking to Nicodemus in the
third chapter of John, he says to this perfect Son of the Covenant,
I always like to think of him as such, for he was, he was within
the covenant nation. He had the covenant sign in His
flesh. He was circumcised the eighth
day as every good son of the covenant was. He was very knowledgeable. He was THE teacher in Israel. That's how our Lord refers to
Him. He had not opted out of the covenant. He was not someone
who had come to years of discretion and then cut himself off from
the covenant people. He was a perfect son of the covenant,
within the framework of all the covenant graces and blessings,
and he comes to discuss something that he observes in the Lord
Jesus, namely His signs and His miracles. And our Lord very abruptly
speaks to him and says in John 3 and verse 3, Jesus answered
and said unto him, Truly, truly I say unto thee, except one,
he didn't say to Nicodemus, except you be born anew, Nicodemus,
whatever I say to you, I say to you as an individual simply
because it's true of all men universally. Except one be born
anew, or born from above, or born again, he cannot see the
kingdom of God. That is, he cannot perceive it
inwardly and spiritually. Nicodemus saith unto him, How
can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time
into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Truly,
truly, I say unto you, except one be born of water and the
Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which
is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit
is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee,
Ye must be born again. And if there were no other references
in the entirety of the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation,
these three texts in the words of our Lord would be sufficient
forever to dispel the darkness, the fogginess, the fuzziness
of men's minds with reference to this simple issue that they
cannot enter the Kingdom of God unless they're born again. And
so the Lord says to Nicodemus what he says to you and to me,
except we are born again, we cannot see, we cannot enter,
marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born anew. And so if I were to close the
service tonight simply by quoting those words, you ought forever
to know that if you entertain one ounce of hope that you will
see and enter the kingdom of God without the new birth, you're
entering hopes that have no foundation in the scripture. I don't know
where the foundation is. Ultimately, it goes back to that
father of lies, who is a murderer who wants to murder your soul.
And he's not fastidious about his instruments. He can use religious
lies He can use all kinds of lies, no matter what lie he uses,
it has its one ultimate intention, to destroy and to damn your soul. And so I say to every boy, every
girl, every man, every woman, whether from a religious background,
as was Nicodemus, whether from a very religious background with
the privilege of a praying mom and dad, perhaps a mom and dad
who even carried you to a baptismal font, or took you forward in
a service of dedication, I say to you from this Word of the
Living God, except you're born again, you'll never see, you'll
never enter the Kingdom of God. And if you hope that you shall
on some other basis, You're hoping against light and against truth,
and you're believing a lie. But now you might ask, as no
doubt Nicodemus asked, why must there be such an experience of
spiritual grace and power so as to call it a new birth. You see, our Lord was underscoring
the radical nature of that work that God does by which men enter
the kingdom. Whether Nicodemus thought he
could drift in on the crest of his religiosity and his religious
privilege, I don't know. But Jesus said, you don't drift
into the kingdom, you're born into it. Birth is a radical thing.
Up to the moment of birth, that life was not. And there it is,
and it brings its first, and it is a new thing. The concept
of a new creation, of course, is picked up by the biblical
writers as well. Well, why then is such an experience
of God's grace necessary? Well, the simple answer of this
passage from the lips of our Lord is that every son of Adam
is so bad by nature that nothing short of this will ever fit him
for the kingdom of God. And our Lord says it in those
brief words in verse 6, that which is born of the flesh is
flesh. That which is born of the spirit
is spirit. Don't be amazed that I said unto
you, you must be born anew. In other words, once you begin
to understand individually, personally, inwardly, experientially, you,
I'm not talking you collectively, you individually. Once you and
I begin to understand what this little phrase means, That which
is born of the flesh is flesh, you'll never again be amazed
that Jesus said you have to be born again to enter the kingdom.
Once you begin to understand what you are as a fleshy creature,
you'll never be amazed again that Jesus said you must be born
anew. What then is the characteristic
of flesh as our Lord states it here? Well, the first characteristic
of flesh, of that which is born of the flesh, that which partakes
of depraved, carnal human nature, is described by the Apostle Paul
in Romans 8 and verse 7. The words in the original for
carnal and fleshy all have their common root. Notice how he describes
a person who is born of the flesh. Romans 8 and verse 7, Because
the mind of the flesh is enmity against God, for it is not subject
to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. And they that are
in the flesh cannot please God. Why did Jesus say you must be
born again? Because that which is of the
flesh is flesh. And what is the characteristic
of flesh? This text says the characteristic of flesh is its
enmity against God, its non-subjugation to the law of God, and its total
inability to be subject to God and to be pleasing to God in
that state. May I ask you a very simple question
this morning? Has God ever taken the lid off
and given you a look at what your fleshy heart is like by
nature? Now remember, who was he talking to? Was he talking
to a man that went out with a placard and said, down with the Ten Commandments,
down with morality, down... No, no, no, no, he was talking
to Nicodemus, a man who could say with the Apostle Paul, it's
touching the law blameless in its external demand. No doubt
Nicodemus' moral and ethical conduct was beyond reproach.
He would have been elected Christian citizen of 1973 in Podunk, Ohio
or some other place. And yet Jesus said, Nicodemus,
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, beneath all that external
religiosity, beneath all that external religious privilege,
is a disposition of utter and absolute enmity against the very
God whom you say you love. The very God whose words you
traffic in as the teacher in Israel. Never forget the words of A.
W. Tozer, that dear saint of God who's gone to glory. Listening
to him on a tape a number of years ago, I remember him saying,
I've seen a number of ugly sights in my life, but the worst sight
I've ever seen is my own heart. And every Christian can say that,
at least in principle. When you see that in all those
years, when the claims of God and His law, and when the provisions
of God and His Son were matters of indifference and unconcern,
the living God of heaven and earth was saying to you, You
are my creature, obey me! And that fleshy, carnal heart
was saying, I am the master of my own soul. I'll do as I please. I will not have this mandarin
Now, in some people, that breaks out into open, profligate ungodliness. In some people, it's veiled,
as it was with Nicodemus. But the common denominator of
every person who has never been born of the Spirit of God is
that he has a carnal mind that is enmity against God. It is
not subject to the law of God. Neither, indeed, can be, therefore
they cannot please God. My friend, that's what God says
about you. Now, my question is, has the Holy Ghost ever shown
you that that wasn't an overstatement? That's the truth. Has the Spirit
through the Word shown you that's what I brought into this world? A carnal mind, enmity against
God, not subject to His law. Has God shown you that? If He
has, my friend, you'll know it. You don't take that by faith.
God brings it home by spiritual sight, and it breaks you, and
it crushes you, and it humbles you. That's the first characteristic
of that which is born of the flesh. And when we understand
that, then we're not amazed that we must be born anew. Something
so radical must occur to that basic disposition of enmity to
God and non-subjection to God. that we can actually say with
the psalmist, I delight to do thy will, O my God, yea, thy
law is within my heart. Second characteristic of the
flesh is described in Galatians chapter 5. Galatians chapter
5. What can the flesh produce? Well,
suppose I took all the children out next week and said, I'm going
to plant my garden. And I took some lettuce seeds. What would your
kids think of me if they saw this preacher standing in his
garden, cutting a little furrow with his finger to put the lettuce
seeds in, puts them in, covers them over and pats them very
gently, and then one of your kids says to me, oh, what are
you doing? I say, oh, I'm putting in lettuce
seeds. What are you doing that for? Oh, I hope to get a crop
of tomatoes. I mean, the three-year-old would
have sense enough to know. Either that guy's pulling my
leg or he's crazy. No, no, you plant lettuce seeds.
Let us seeds produce after their kind. And this is exactly what
Paul says in Galatians chapter 5. What will a fleshy heart produce? He tells us, The works of the
flesh are manifest, which are these, fornication, uncleanness,
lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies,
wrath, factions, divisions, parties, envying, drunkenness, revelings,
and such like. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh, and the seeds of a fleshy heart can only produce the fruit
and the flowers of fleshy deeds. And flesh can refine itself,
but it can only produce flesh. God says that your heart can
only produce these things. Oh, maybe not necessarily outwardly.
Say, well, my heart has never produced adultery, fornication,
uncleanness. Ah, has it? Jesus said, Whoso looketh to
lust upon a woman in his heart hath committed adultery with
her. Jesus said, Whoso has a spirit
of division and a spirit expressed in these words, thou fool is
guilty of breaking the commandment, thou shall do no murder. What has your fleshy heart produced?
It's produced these sins, and that's all it can produce. And
yet the mark of the people of God is described in the next
few verses. The fruit of the Spirit, love,
joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control. How can those fruits ever grow
from a fleshy heart? They cannot! And so God describes
the new birth under another figure in the Old Testament. He says,
I'll take out the heart of stone. and I will give them a heart
of flesh. Oh, my dear fellow girl, man,
woman, are you guilty of that first great delusion that dear
John Owen saw again and again? thinking that you are fit for
heaven, though a stranger to the new birth. Listen to the
words of Jesus. Except a man be born anew, he
cannot see. Except a man be born of water
and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.
Why? That which is born of the flesh is flesh. What's the mark
of that fleshy heart? Enmity against God and the production
of everything that is contrary to the law and to the character
of God. There's another characteristic
of a fleshy heart in Jesus. Hints at it in verse 3, ye that
you must be born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God. Turn
to 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 14. Now the natural man, the man
who only has what his mother and father were able to give
him in the process of procreation, they may have given him a wonderful
mind, may have given him a noble soul, but he has nothing more
than what's been passed on in the process of procreation, has
nothing more than what he's picked up in his education, and that
may be much in the knowledge of the world about him, in the
knowledge of himself, in the knowledge even of religious things,
but listen to this indictment, 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
judged. The mark of that which is born
of the flesh, it is enmity against God. It produces that which is
contrary to the law of God, and thirdly, it cannot savingly perceive
the truth of God. Let me illustrate it. It's been
going on right in this building tonight. I have no doubt but
that some of you have actually had to restrain tears of joy
or shouts of hallelujah when you were singing of such great
truths as God's effectual call in that great hymn of Isaac Watts.
Why was I made to hear thy voice and enter while there's room?
while others make a wretched choice and rather starve than
come. It was the same love that spread
the feast that sweetly drew me in, else we had still refused
to come and perished in our sin. And some of us were probably
on the very brink of losing our composure and shedding a tear
or two and letting out a hallelujah, while others of you, we could
have been singing about Jack and the Beanstalk for all you
were concerned. Why? Same words, same buildings, same
atmosphere, same everything. I'll tell you why. Some see with
an eye that's been opened by virtue of the new birth, and
others of you look with eyes that are sightless. And Jesus
said, you must be born anew, for that which is born of the
flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the flesh is not only
enmity against God, not only produces that which is contrary
to His character and His law, but is totally incapable of understanding
His truth. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh. Now, my friend, that's why you
have to be born again. Ah, but you say, what is this
new birth? What constitutes it? Jesus gives
a hint in the text. Look at it. That which is born
of the Spirit and of the water, except a man be born of water
and of the Spirit." What did he mean by that? Well, he wasn't
saying a thing about baptism, and the only people who see the
waters of baptism here, whether it's immersion, effusion, or
sprinkling, are those who put the water of baptism there. He
was talking to a man knowledgeable in the Old Testament. And he
was talking about a spiritual experience that he says Nicodemus
ought to be aware of. He said, Art thou the teacher
in Israel, and knowest not these things? And I, along with many
other commentators, believe that our Lord had precisely Ezekiel
36 in his mind when he spoke to Nicodemus. Look at those words. God says, In the promise of new
covenant blessings, Ezekiel 36, 24, for I will take you from
among the nations and gather you out of the countries and
will bring you into your own land. And I will sprinkle clean
water upon you, and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness,
and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart will
I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I
will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will
give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you,
and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep mine ordinances
and do them. This is essentially the same
promise given through Jeremiah in Jeremiah chapter 31, quoted
in Hebrews 8 and in Hebrews 10, the blessings of the new covenant. He's saying, Nicodemus, listen,
you are the Pharisee. You are the sanctified one. You
are the holy one. You are one of these who purifies
himself every time he's been out in the marketplace. And you
have all kinds of washings and ablutions and all the rest. But
Nicodemus, You need to be cleansed in a realm that the waters of
your acts of purifying can never touch. You need to be cleansed
from your spiritual and moral filthiness. You need to be born
of water, water speaking of that spiritual experience of cleansing,
cleansing that comes through the blood. of the everlasting
covenant. And not only, Nicodemus, do you
need cleansing, you need quickening. You need to be born of water
and of the Spirit. I will put my Spirit within you,
and the effect of that will be that you will desire to walk
in my ways. You see, the new birth is not
some kind of a coat of many colors experience in which we necessarily
must feel tingles and chills up and down our spine. It is
not necessarily an experience that we can consciously point
to the hour it happened. No, no. The new birth is known
not so much by our ability to dissect it in terms of our experience. Jesus said in John 3, look at
the passage. He says, you can hear the wind. You can't tell where it comes
from, where it goes, but you hear it. You know it by its effect,
so is everyone born of the Spirit. To be born of the Spirit is to
be brought by the mighty power of God into the orbit of the
cleansing and renewing work of Jesus Christ. to be cleansed
from our filthiness in His precious blood, to be quickened by His
Spirit unto a life of obedience. And it is not essential that
we should know when God begot us by His Spirit, but that we
have been begotten by His Spirit. And though we know that the point
as far as God's dealings we pass from death to life, surely the
ways of the Spirit are mysterious. And some of us reared in Christian
homes in which our consciences were constantly sensitive to
the truth of God's Word, in which we made, perhaps as I did, a
half a dozen false starts. And we made decisions and professions,
and some of us cannot point to the precise time that we pass
from death unto life. But one thing we know. Where
as once we wandered in the filth, we now panned after holiness.
Where once our hearts were enmity against God, we now love His
law. Where once we produced nothing
but flesh, we even see growing in us something all too little,
but thank God, something of the fruit of the Spirit, where once
there was total darkness we now see, though we see through a
glass darkly. We see, and the things which
once bored us to tears throw us to goose bumps. And we say there's no explanation
but that I've experienced the divine begetting, a begetting
of cleansing, a begetting of renewal. Oh, my dear friend,
young or old, tonight listen to me as I speak to you earnestly
and directly. Are you guilty of John Owen's
first observed delusion, thinking you're fit for heaven, though
a stranger to the new birth? I set the record straight for
you tonight. Except a man be born anew, he
cannot see, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Mr. Owen observed there was a
second great delusion, the delusion that one had been born again,
though his life did not evidence that transformation which always
follows the new birth. And to what scripture shall I
direct you for an exposure of that damning delusion? There
is one pivotal text, and then we shall look at a collection
of other texts. 2 Corinthians chapter 5. 2 Corinthians
chapter 5. And verse 17, familiar text to
many of us. Wherefore, if any man is in Christ,
born of the Spirit, he is vitally united to Christ. The he is,
are in italics, you'll notice in your Bibles. No verb is there
in the original. It's as though the Apostle Paul
were sitting and writing or dictating this letter to the Corinthians.
And he's describing what is the effect of true saving religion. What is the effect of this union
with Christ? By virtue of God's quickening
work, leading us to repentance and faith in the Savior, united
by the Spirit unto the Son of God. And he says, If any man
be in Christ. And he puts his pen down or is
silent if he's dictating. And he meditates. He allows the
thought to run through his mind frontward, backwards. He looks
at it from this side and that side. How shall I describe it? If any man be in Christ, what's
the effect of this? Under what analogy shall I frame
it? What shall I use to somehow set
before the people of God the magnitude, the glory, the tremendous
effect of it? He picks up his pen. He puts a dash after the words,
if any man in Christ, dash! A new creation! Exclamation point. That's the
force of the original. If any man in Christ, new creation,
born anew. And what is the result of it?
Look at the text. Old things are passed away. Behold, they
are become new. That's the effect of true saving
religion. Being made a new creation, there
will be the fruits of that new creation. As inevitably as night
follows day, so the work of the new birth brought by God in us
will produce these effects evident in the lives of all who are born
again. So I move to a second class of
hearer tonight. You may be one who breathes quite
easily during the first half of the sermon. You said, well,
that preacher's not talking to me. Oh, no, I certainly do believe,
except the man is born again, he'll never enter. Oh, I buy
that. Oh, amen. Give it to him, preacher. That's
it. That's right down the line. Sixteen ounces to the pound,
gospel truth. My friend, let me ask you a question.
You agree that without the new birth, no one will see or enter
the kingdom of heaven. You agree to that. You subscribe
to that. You say amen to that. And you go further and say, yes,
I have experienced that. If so, then you ought not to
be afraid of this next question. What is there about you right
now, this night, June 3rd, 1973, that has no explanation but that
you're a new creation? Now I'm not asking what was there
about you that time when you made a decision and you got the
chills up and down your spine and you felt glorious and you
said, oh I know I must be born again. My friend, I'm not concerned.
You can blot out that day from your memory as far as I'm concerned.
My question is what is there about you right now tonight?
What has there been about you this past week that has no explanation
but that you've experienced that birth of cleansing and renewal? Every test in the New Testament
directed to professing Christians, by which they are to judge whether
or not they are the real thing, are present tense tests. God
nowhere says if you can remember something that happened in the
past, you're all right. God says no if you can discern
evidence of something that's happening now. If any man in Christ, he is a
new creation, not he was for a week or two weeks. And I direct
your attention now to a series of texts from that great little
epistle of John, 1 John. And we're just going to look
at a few of them to show that my statement is not simply the
authoritative barkings of a preacher, but an honest portrayal of the
truth of Scripture. Notice John's purpose in writing,
among other things. He tells us in chapter 5 that
he is writing to professing Christians, believers. To the end, verse
13, these things I write unto you that believe in the name
of the Son of God. These things have I written unto
you that ye may know that ye have eternal life and that you
may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. Well,
what things did he write that they might know? And at this
point, I must give vent to one of my deepest frustrations. Whenever
I hear this verse quoted in the context of saying, look, now
you've made your decision, and God says you ought to know, and
here's where He says it. 1 John 5, 13, these things I've
written to you, they may know. God wants you to know. And they
don't pay any attention to the things that were written that
they may know. What things were written that these people might
know that they were born of God? Did He give them a string of
promises to claim? Did he give them some directions? If you
can remember the day, the hour, the place you made a decision,
you may know he did no such thing. What things did he write that
they might know? This comes at the end of the
letter. Well, you don't need to be a scholar to know that
what you've got to do is go back to the beginning of the letter
and read the things that he wrote that they might know. That's
just good horse sense. Alas, alas, many times people
use little horse sense when it comes to the state of their eternal
soul. Now let's look at some of the
things he wrote, just a couple of them. 1 John 1 verse 5, And this is
the message which we have heard from him, that is, from the Lord
Jesus, and announce unto you, that God is light, and in him
is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship
with him, In other words, if we profess to be born again by
the Spirit, we have been united to Christ, we are Christians.
If we say we have fellowship with Him and walk in the darkness,
that is, we frame our lives by the darkness, The absence of
light is darkness. The absence of a life framed
by the holy precepts of the Word of God is darkness. What does
John say about us? We're backslidden. We need to
get reconsecrated. He says we lie and we do not
the truth. He says we're just bald-faced
liars. That's what we are. But, he says,
if we walk in the light, not perfectly, but that's the bent
and drifted purpose, as he is in the light, we have fellowship
one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, goes
on cleansing us from all sin. In whom is the cleansing of the
blood continually effective? Only in those who are walking
in the light, and who walks in the light? Everyone who is born
of God. He doesn't walk in the light perfectly. He doesn't walk
in the light with equal alacrity at any given point in his Christian
experience. He may have a specific area of
darkness where he's fought the Lord and God is dealing with
him. I'm fully aware of all the Bible teaches about the remaining
sin in believers. I have to live with myself. But
don't believe these words of their clear meaning. There are
only two realms in which you are basically and pervasively
walking, either light or darkness. And if you're not walking in
light, the blood of Jesus Christ is not going on cleansing you
from all sin. It means you're yet under the
wrath and anger of God. You've never been born again. Chapter 2. We're addressing ourselves to
the second great delusion that John Owen observed, that men
profess to be born anew who do not evidence a transformed life. Verse 3, And hereby do we know
that we know him. Here's one of the things he wrote.
Hereby do we know that we know him, if we remember our glorious
conversion experience. That's the Bible according to
20th century perversions of the truth of God. Hereby do we know
that we know him if we can quote three verses on assurance of
salvation. Hereby do we know that we know
him if we are well instructed in the doctrine of eternal security
and know that no matter how much we foul up, we're still safe
because we've made a decision. Oh, dear ones, I'm not trying
to be smart or facetious. These are lies that people are
clinging to, and the only thing, it seems, that's going to cause
them to relinquish them are the flames of hell. Hereby do we know that we know
Him if we are keeping His commandments. It doesn't say, and this is how
we came to know Him, by keeping His commandments. That would
be a destruction of the whole message of the Gospel. None of
them. We come to know Him in His gracious,
sovereign work of regeneration, the new birth. God overcoming
the blindness and the rebellion, leading us to repentance in faith,
His effectual calling, that's how we come to know Him. But
John says, hereby do we know that we know Him if we are keeping
His commandments. He that saith, Oh, I know him.
You can't scare me, preacher. I know I'm saved. I can remember
when I made a profession and I called on God and my joy was
unbounding and blah, blah, blah, and on we go. And yet your life
is not marked by a diligent, serious adherence to the revealed
will of God. You know what God says about
you? Look at it. He that saith, even if he's sitting in Trinity
Baptist Church, June 3rd, 1973, he that saith, I know him and
does not make a practice of keeping his commandments, that's the
force of the original. It's a present tense verb. I
know him and does not keep his commandments. What does God say
about you? God uses language that doesn't even seem fastidious
in our modern pulpits. God says you're a liar. And the
truth is not in you. The truth has never been fused
to your being by the operation of the Holy Ghost. Now my friend,
let me press that on your conscience. Are you making a practice of
keeping His commandments? Not perfectly. For John said
in the previous verses, if we say we have no sin, we lie and
the truth is not in us. Anybody who says, yes sir, I'm
keeping His commandments, I'm wholly sanctified. I got the
second work and I never sin again. God says, you're a liar too.
You're a liar too. Truth's not in you. Because if
the truth's in me, it's constantly exposing my remaining sin. And I must pray as long as I
pray every day. Thy kingdom come, thy will be
done. I must also pray, forgive us
our debts as we forgive our debtors. Not obeying imperfectly, not
obeying in an equal zeal at any point in our lives, but the drift
of our lives is what? obedience to his word. Now notice
what it says. Hereby do we know that we know
him if we keep some of his commandments. No, no, if we keep his commandments.
You see, the dividing line between a hypocrite and a true Christian
is what the old writers would say is the commitment to universal
as opposed to partial obedience. The hypocrite will choose the
commandments which are convenient for him to obey. forsake not
the assembling of yourselves together. So nobody fights it,
no persecution. If you come to church, you've
got to ride to church, parents are going, so it's easy to keep
that commandment, forsake not the assembling of yourselves
together, for most of us. But what about the person who risks
being disowned by his parents, being divorced by a husband or
wife? Ah, obedience to that command now has some moral content, doesn't
it, you see? Some people find it easy to keep
certain commandments, even to their personal advantage, material
advantage, social advantage. But the mark of a true Christian
is he keeps the commandments of God with a principle of universal
obedience so that the commandments that impinge upon his carnal
delights the commandments that cross Him in His remaining carnal
desires, He cries out, O God, that all of My ways were directed
to keep Thy commandments. And when He must, in obedience
to the command, Be ye holy, for I am holy, deal with a sin that
is as dear as His right hand and His right eye, Jesus said,
For sheer love to the Savior, and out of obedience He will
be willing to pluck out the right eye and cut off the right hand. Jesus stated it beautifully in
John 10 when he said, my sheep hear my voice and they follow
me. Notice he didn't say my sheep
hear the sweet elements of my voice, but they hear my voice.
My voice that says sweetly, come all ye that labor and are heavy
laden. And we know we're His sheep when
we find ourselves coming, saying, Lord, I am a weary, heavy-laden
sinner. Will you receive the likes of
me? And we have His promise. Him that cometh unto me I'll
in no wise cast out. But that voice also says, If
any man come after me, and hate not father, mother, brother,
sister, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And the true sheep says, Lord,
I hear your voice calling me to rest, but I also hear your
voice calling me to give you that place of unrivaled affection
in my heart. And Lord, I desire to obey both
utterances of your voice. He calls us to glory, but He
calls us to a cross. He calls us to reign with Him.
He calls us to suffer with Him. And he said, my sheep hear my
voice. John says, you say you're born
of God? You say that through the new
birth you've come to see the kingdom of God? You've come to
know God? Here's the evidence. Now may
I press it home close to your conscience? Is your life marked
by universal obedience? Not perfectly. Not equally. at every stage of your life,
but is it the pervasive, dominant characteristic? Your heart, your
will, your mind, your spirit are turned in the direction of
the voice of Jesus, and your feet walk His ways. You see, if the dominant characteristic
of that which is born of the flesh is enmity against God,
Romans 8, 7, And the dominant characteristic of those born
of the Spirit is subjection to God. And that's exactly what
Ezekiel 36 says. He says, I'll take out that heart
of stone! I'll take out that carnal heart! And what will be
the evidence? I'll give a heart of flesh, I'll
write my laws upon it, and I'll cause them to keep my statutes
and to do my judgments. And if God has begotten you by
the Spirit, He's begotten you unto a life of obedience. Is that true of you? How about
you kids? You're keeping his commandments? The commandments
that tell you to be kind one to another? To be forgiving one
to another? To obey and honor mommy and daddy? Listen you children, if God gives
you the new birth, you'll evidence that he's done something that
only God can do. God doesn't have two qualities
of the new birth, one for adults and one for children. You parents,
you better get your expectations for your children leveled by
the standard of the Word of God. And you better expect in your
kids something more than just their natural gullibility to
swallow what mommy and daddy say. For the supernatural work
of the Holy Ghost, they are born of flesh and they need the new
birth as much at age five as they would if they lived a profligate
life of unbelief and resistance to God until the year fifty. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh, whether it's born in Christian homes or non-Christian
homes, whether it's five or fifty. Here was a man who had all the
privileges of the covenant community, and God says, you need the new
birth, Nicodemus. That's it. We better expect a
principle of universal obedience in our children at the level
of their understanding. at the level of their comprehension,
at the level of their limited development, yes, but my expectations
for my children if they claim to know God are not measured
by what the psychologist says I can expect of kids, it's measured
by what the Word of God says I expect of His grace. Grace in a child is supernatural
grace, granted. The development of the fruit
won't be that, which it'll be when they're twenty. But it's
still fruit that only God the Holy Ghost produces. How about
you kiddies? You say you're born of God? You've
entered the kingdom? Are you keeping His commands?
You're walking in the light? And you can go right through
the book of 1 John. We'll just take one other. One other. Notice
now in chapter 3, verse 9. Whosoever is begotten of God,
whosoever has the new birth, does not make a practice of sin. That's the way the New American
Standard translates it, I believe, and that gives the force of the
original. Why? Because his seed remaineth in
him. That is the principle of divine life. And he cannot make
a practice of sin because he is begotten of God. In this,
the children of God are manifest in the children of the devil.
Whosoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, neither he that
loveth not his brother. These things have I written that
you may know. You say that you're born again. You say that Jesus
Christ is your Savior, that the Holy Spirit has come to indwell
you. And he says, here's the test.
Do you make a practice of holiness? What kind of holiness? Again,
just like obedience, universal holiness. The law of God touches
the thoughts as well as the actions, the intents and the attitudes,
as well as the deeds and the external performances. And the
mark of a man who has been born of God is that the divine seed
within him, which hasn't come externally, but inwardly in the
depths of his being, makes him at the depths of his being long
for holiness. He cannot make a practice of
sin. Why? It's incompatible with the
new life unto which he's been begotten. And I emphasize again
that that divine begetting is inward, in the deep springs of
our being. So if I'm talking to someone
tonight, I say, oh yeah, I must be a Christian, I made a decision,
I live a reasonably good life. My friend, listen to me. You're
a stranger to the divine begetting. unless you know what it is to
pant after and to long after a holiness that goes as deep
as the deepest wellsprings of your personality. You long for
holy thoughts and holy attitudes and holy dispositions as well
as for holy actions and holy deeds. Though you may blush in
the presence of your fellow Christians if you lose your temper, and
find yourself restless till you've tracked them all down and said,
forgive me, I was unlike the Savior, and you go to your closet
and ask the Lord to forgive you. Listen, you'll blush just as
much when in secret away from the sight of mom and dad, husband
and wife and children, you think a mean thought against a brother
or sister, and you'll go down upon your knees and say, oh God,
cleanse the chambers of my soul. Do you know what that is? Do
you know what that is, my friend? I'm not giving preachers talk.
It's one they don't like with pulpits. We got this one down
as low as we could and as close as we could to negate it, but
somehow I could feel some of you still think the preacher's
up there performing. Dear ones, I'm not performing. I'm delivering my soul of your
soul. And if you say you're born again,
and art walking in the light, and walking in obedience, and
pursuing holiness of art, God says, you're deluded. You'll
perish in hell unless you come into the orbit of that gracious
work of divine begetting, the work of cleansing, and the work
of windowing. You can go through the book of
1 John and see the other things that John wrote. as an indication
that the divine begetting had indeed been wrought in the hearts
of men. But I close now with this summary
and final exhortation. Steroan observed there were two
great delusions by which men were ill-prepared for eternity. One, that they could be fit for
heaven without the divine begetting. Two, that they could have the
divine begetting without a transformed life. Did you come into this
building tonight clinging to one of those two delusions? I
cannot believe that God has constrained me to preach. I think there's
only one other time in twenty years of preaching I've ever
done this, outside of preaching in the street park. Preach totally
extemporaneous without a piece of paper in front of me. You notice I haven't done careful
exegetical work phrase by phrase. I would never dare to do that
without being as I always am, ours. with my Greek Testament
and my commentaries. No, no. These are basic truths
that under God have been the meat and drink of my soul and
ministry for twenty years. I feel safe taking them as it
were off the cuff. But I can't believe God's led
me to do this. To impress you. I can't believe
God's led me to do this. Just because there are a few
more people that ought to hear the tail end of this morning's
message next Lord's Day. I believe God's led me to do
it because some of you came into this building tonight enveloped
in one of those two delusions. You came into this building enveloped
in the delusion that you could be fit for heaven without the
new birth. Have you seen the folly of that delusion? Have
you heard the words of Jesus coming to your heart? Except
a man be born anew, he cannot see, he cannot enter the kingdom
of heaven. Have they come home to your heart?
Have you heard a voice far more powerful than the voice of the
preacher? Has that word come home? Oh,
my friend, listen. My friend, listen. Don't go out
tonight and say, oh, he just got me upset, he's emotional,
and he stirred me up with his... No, no, my friend, that's the
voice of God. You better cherish those echoes of the voice of
the Almighty within your bosom. Today, if you hear His voice,
harden not your heart. Are there some of you who came
with that second delusion? Oh, you really said in that first
half of the sermon, sock it to Him. That's it. Give it to Him.
About halfway through the second part of the sermon, you began
to feel a little uncomfortable tonight. You began to feel a
little shaky, didn't you? As God led His servant to speak
in this way, to send arrows to your heart. Ah, my friend, they're
love arrows. They're gracious arrows. God
means you no harm. He wants to strip you of your
delusion now, while the door of mercy is still wide open. And in that door stands a gracious
Savior who bids you come. And if you will refuse to be
stripped now by your pride, There'll be no refusal in that day when
He says, depart from Me. I never knew you. Which category do you fit, my
friend? Whichever category it is, thank God I don't need to
give two remedies. There is one. If you read on
the third chapter of John, Jesus went on from the necessity of
the new birth A work which only God can effect, and which must
be effected if we are to be fit for heaven. To speak of His own
death upon the cross for the new birth is always effected
in connection with the preaching of the gospel. The glorious message
of Christ dying in the womb instead of sinners. And though the mere
preaching of the gospel of itself cannot effect the new birth,
and though I'm theologically astute enough to know that man
will not believe unless there is that mysterious divine beginning,
I know all of that. But I also know Men are begotten
as Christ crucified is held before them. All look unto the Son of
God. For as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
that whosoever believes in Him should not perish. Lifted up
was He to die. It is finished was His cry. Now
in heaven exalted high. Hallelujah, what a Savior! And
He lives tonight to save. All who come unto God by Him,
come in your delusion, come in your confusion, and say, Lord
Jesus, have mercy upon me. And you have the promise of the
Word of God, Him that comes to me, I will in no wise cast out. May I share an incident that
gives me great encouragement preaching tonight? I was at a
conference just Friday and Saturday out in the Pittsburgh area. And
a man approached me at the close of the morning service, whom
I had not seen, as best I can reckon, for 13 years. And I remembered him, remembered
his name, and remembered the occasion in which I had met him. It was at a young people's conference
out on Lake Erie 13 years ago, 13 summers ago. And as we conversed
together, he said, I know it would encourage you to know that
many of the young people look back to that summer's the time
when God drew them to himself and said all these years they've
been monuments of God's saving grace and they've come up into
mature adulthood in their pillars in the church and going on with
God. Now I had no knowledge of that
because even back then I had given up this business of cutting
notches in the rifle by asking people to raise their hands,
come down an aisle, but believe that the preaching of the word
and the earnest pleading with people in Christ's name were
the means at our disposal. Ah, my friend, can it be that
someone will look upon this night as the night when God stripped
away their lives and opened the door of mercy and they closed
with Christ? Oh, may God grant that it shall
be so. Thank God for a powerful gospel that can arrest men when
they least expect it. Maybe you sauntered into this
building tonight saying, well, what will this babbler say? A
lot of you visitors here tonight have never seen you before. I
don't know what's brought you here. Maybe it's evident now
why God brought you here. Oh, look and live. Flee to the
Savior. Embrace Him. Cast yourself upon
Him. Be born from above. without which you will not see
the Kingdom of God. Let us pray.