John chapter three, we are looking
at the centrality of Christ in all aspects of salvation. I'm
sure someone could probably come up with a better, a more quippier
title, I guess, but that's what we're looking at is we're looking
at the preeminence or the centrality of Christ in every aspect of
our salvation. Paul said, I preach Christ and
Him crucified. Not that Paul didn't preach other
things. Sometimes I hear guys say that,
you know, especially whenever you get off on dealing with other
subjects in the scriptures, you know, whether it be issues of
ecclesiology or eschatology or anything else other than particularly
the gospel. creation, things such as that.
I hear guys say, well, you know, we're supposed to preach Christ
and Him crucified. That's our message, you know.
Well, the Bible also says that we're to preach the whole counsel
of God. So everything in the word of God is if you allow me
the phrase, open game for us to preach on. And every bit of
it, though, centers on the Lord Jesus Christ. What Paul was saying
whenever he said, I preach Christ and Him crucified, is that Christ
is central in the message of the gospel. And when we're preaching
the gospel, That is the central issue. Christ is the central
figure in the gospel. It's not decisionism. It's not
preacher preaching-ism. It's not church-ism. It's not
nationalism or ethnicity. The centrality of the gospel
is Christ Jesus and his finished work. And so that's what Paul
was reiterating whenever he made that statement that he preaches
Christ and Christ crucified. And so whenever we go to anything
that we look at, whether it has to do with the church, whether
it has to do with creation, whether it has to do with eschatology,
whether it has to do with any of these other issues, we also
find at the center is Christ. I mean, we take creation, all
things were made by Him and for Him. In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It was Jesus who created. And so he is the central figure
in that. Whenever we talk about the church,
it's his church. He is the head of the church.
And so anytime we talk about ecclesiastical matters, it's
always with Christ being in view and the center of what he has
done and what he said to do. He is the central figure of that.
So whenever we put it to eschatology, the end of all things, Christ
is the center of that as well. Worthy is the lamb that was slain
will be what will be said in all of eternity. And so Christ is the central
figure of all things. But specifically we're looking
at Christ being the center figure, preeminent, in every aspect of
salvation. And let me clarify in case anybody
wasn't listening on Facebook or on Sermon Audio to any of
the previous messages. Whenever we say every aspect
of salvation, whenever you use the term salvation, that word
in and of itself is a vague word. And when I say vague, I mean
that there is many ways that that can be interpreted. And
the scripture does use the terms saved and salvation in different
ways. It's not always referring to
the eternal aspect of salvation. It's not always referring to
the historical aspect of salvation. It's not always talking about
the timely aspect of salvation. It's not all the time talking
about the future aspect of salvation. You kind of get my drift, you
see how salvation has different aspects. There is an eternal
aspect, there is a historical aspect with what Christ did,
and there is a timely aspect in how it is brought about or
effected. And then there is also an ending
or a consummation of that salvation and a glorification of that at
the end. And so in every aspect of that,
whether it's the eternal, legal aspect, if it's the physical,
historical work of Christ and Him crucified, or if it's the
application of that in all the aspects of us experiencing that,
or the future aspect of it, Christ is the center of it. And so we've
been seeing that. We've seen that Christ is the
center figure in our election. in our predestination. He's in
our adoption. He's the center figure in our
justification, and in our redemption, and in our forgiveness. In all
those aspects, Jesus is the center point. And we talked about those
over the last couple of weeks. Now, all those that we've talked
about before have absolutely nothing to do with what we've
done. Jesus has done it all. And there was no conditions laid
upon any of those things. Justification, now, I guess if
you wanna get down and be picky and do semantic games, we can
say that yes, salvation is a conditional salvation. It's conditioned upon
Jesus Christ fulfilling the eternal covenant. That's the only condition
though. And it's not our condition, it's
the condition of Him. But anyway, I digress on that. Jesus is the centerpiece in all
that. So all those things happened
to us justification, forgiveness, redemption, adoption, predestination,
election. All those things happen and those
are actually outside of our experience even. We don't even experience
those actual things. But today I'd like us to kind
of start looking at some of the aspects of salvation, of our
experience of salvation. We experience certain things
that is termed salvation. And probably the one that is
most prevalent, that most people are talking about whenever they
use the term saved, either has to do with, I guess I would say
two things. And I make a distinction, I think
there is a distinction in the scripture, and I try to make
that distinction. And again, I'm open for correction on these
if there's biblical evidence to the contrary. But I do believe
that the two aspects that most people use the term salvation
for is either being born again or being converted, okay? And I believe the Bible teaches
that those are actually two separate things. It's not one thing. It's
not the same thing. They're not synonymous. Being
born again or being quickened and being converted are two separate
things. I'll be honest, whenever I first
come into the Doctrines of Grace, and even before the Doctrines
of Grace, I never put those things as separate. And I think the
reason why, at least in my experience, the reason why was because, for
one, I come from an Arminian background who believed that
we were born again based upon our decision. And so that whenever
we accepted Jesus as our personal savior and we prayed that prayer
to ask him into our heart to forgive us of our sin, then we
were then born again and converted. We were converted into born again
people. See, that's how the term is understood at least, at least
how I understood it. I don't wanna speak for all other
Armenians, but that's at least how it seemed to be understood
among the preaching and the teaching that I was under and how it was
conveyed to other people, is that you were not born again
until you believed. And so that believing brought
on being born again, and that was your conversion. However,
we know that in scripture that the fact that we believe is because
we've been born again. So they got it backwards in Arminianism. What's the difference between
being born again and being converted? Well, being born again or quickened,
That is whenever we are given spiritual life. That's whenever
we go from being dead in trespasses and sin to being alive in Christ
Jesus, to being born of the spirit, being born again, rebirth. That's when spiritual life came
in. We had only our dead spiritual nature of Adam. But whenever
the new birth came, then the Bible, it talks about how that
life was put in this vessel of clay, in this old pot, if you
would. And so it's new life. It's not
something else made better, okay? That's the other thing we need
to understand, is in quickening, it is not us being made better
Okay, or given better, you know, that we're souped up and made
more holy or anything. No, quickening is something completely
total, totally foreign, completely new and totally foreign to what
we've ever had. And thus, that is why I don't
like the term regeneration used for quickening. Now, my thoughts
is, you know, I wasn't gonna even go into discussing my views
on regeneration, the word regeneration. Uh, that wasn't what I planned
this morning, but I felt that I probably need to clarify that,
uh, since we're going to be talking about that today. Uh, and so,
uh, I'll probably go into that after we look at some verses
that speak about the new birth or quickening, um, and everything. And then I will discuss why,
uh, I don't think regeneration is the biblical word for quickening. Uh, But again, whenever we talk
about quickening or new birth, that is the giving of spiritual
life. Being converted or conversion is the act or the process in
which God, now that we have been given spiritual understanding,
the process in which God teaches us what's wrong and what's right,
And he moves us from hoping and believing on what is wrong and
hoping and believing on what is right. So whenever we are
being, whenever we are converted, and a lot of times we use the
phrase we're converted to the gospel. Whenever we're converted
to the Gospel, what that means is we have a change of mind.
God changes our understanding or our thinking or our mindset
about at once we thought we were self-righteous and was able to
do enough good that in the end when God weighed our good and
our bad, our good would always be better. Or some other self-righteous
work that we could work our way to salvation. But God showed
us that there is absolutely no way based upon our depravity,
based upon our nature, there is no way that we could do anything
to be worthy or to work or to guarantee our own salvation.
And that that salvation was only in the imputed righteousness
of Jesus Christ based upon his finished work. And so we see
that conversion is converting from our old way of thinking
to the gospel way of thinking. converting, and I believe that
conversion actually is a lifelong process. We are continually being
converted to the right way of thinking on the things of God
and the things of Christ. The Bible says that we are, that
we grow in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ. What
does that mean? That means what I know today about the scriptures,
about Christ, about his salvation, about who I am and who he is,
those things. the grace and the knowledge of
Jesus Christ and all around that surrounds Jesus Christ. We grow
in that, meaning that what I know today is more than what I knew
before. And so I've been converted in
not thinking wrongly about whatever it is. To today, the Lord has
taught me His mercies are new every morning. He gives to us
line upon line, precept upon precept, teaching of the Holy
Spirit, the things of Christ, that each day we begin to know
more and more of our Savior and our salvation. And so it isn't
a growing holier and holier, but it is a understanding more
and more of the spiritual life and the spiritual gift that God
has given us in Christ Jesus and our spiritual giver, Christ
Jesus. And that is conversion, being
converted from that wrong way of thinking to the right way
of thinking and believing the gospel. To be honest, conversion
is more synonymous with repentance than it really is with quickening.
Conversion is the change of mind resulting in a change of action,
and that's the definition that I've heard for repentance my
whole entire life, that repenting is to turn from this and head
in that direction and go that direction. Now, granted, repentance
also has to do with sin. We repent and want to turn from
our sin. But again, brethren, I think
repentance, as far as biblical repentance, is primarily is repenting
of our old way of thinking about how we are saved, about Christ,
our repenting about what we thought that we had something enough. That's first and foremost in
our repentance. Because as I said, every one
of us has repented of sin, but yet to go back to it. Well, that's
totally not the definition of repentance. Repentance is turning
away and not going back. And so a continual repentance
is always recognizing that I had a wrong thinking about that and
so I'm going to think about this. Now, Again, like I said, I think
that there's more to that meaning than that. I do think it has
to do with sin and that we should repent of our sin and turn from
it. And by God's grace, ask that
he keep us from that, cleanse us from that. keep us from doing
that. So, quickening and conversion,
two separate things. Historically, if you'll look,
Baptists have kept that defined and different. They have made
that distinction between quickening and conversion. I'll remember where I first saw
that and begin to study these things after I come to the doctrines
of grace and begin to read a few things about historical Baptist
beliefs and everything. I read the I read the Abstract of Principles
by J.P. Boyce, who was one of the founders
of the Southern Baptist Convention movement. Very strong. doctrines of grace believers
back then. Matter of fact, that abstract of principles was actually
the thing that every professor at the college in Kentucky, Lexington,
or was it Lexington, wherever that southern seminary or whatever
is, they had to adhere to those principles to be professors there. Which they've quit doing now,
that's no longer required. But anyway, as I was reading
through that, I seen that Boyce made this distinction that conversion,
he used the term regeneration. Regeneration and conversion were
two separate works of grace in the believer. And I was kind
of enamored by that. And so I began to read that.
And as I looked in the scripture, I seen that, that, you know,
that, that was true. What he was saying was truth.
And I had to turn from my previous thoughts about those things.
So let's look this morning about quickening in John chapter three,
the Bible actually uses several phrases that talk about the new
birth, but probably the most common or most, uh, popular,
I guess, and most known, is found here in John chapter three, where
Jesus is talking to Nicodemus. If you remember, Nicodemus was
a ruler of the Jews, and he came on behalf of those rulers, and was questioning Jesus about
some things that they obviously had already began to kind of
hone in on and could see that man, this man must come from
God. He's somebody from God, whether or not he's a prophet
or whether or not he's the Messiah, they wouldn't distinguish, but
yet they knew because of what he did, he had to have come from
God. And so anyway, Nicodemus came
to Jesus by night, not because he was ashamed, as so many people
seem to think, that Nicodemus came because he was ashamed.
But the tradition of the Jewish leaders was that whenever a leader
would be open for questioning, a rabbi would be open for questioning,
it was in the evening time. Because during the day he was
about his duties of whatever it was he was at, and so the
time of questioning was in the evening time. And so Nicodemus
came because he considered Jesus, he called him rabbi, he considered
Jesus rabbi. And so he went to him in the
evening time, which was the custom of them to go and do. And so
he came to Jesus inquiring of doctrinal things, of theological
things. And look what he asked. He said,
look in John three, he said, The same came to Jesus by night
and said unto him, Rabbi, we know thou art a teacher come
from God. So they, not only were they calling
him rabbi, or at least Nicodemus was calling him rabbi, but they
knew that he was a teacher come from God. And so he was inquiring
about things that were being taught. For no man can do these
miracles that thou doest except God be with him. Jesus answered
and said unto him. See, Jesus cut right to the chase.
He knew what was going on. He knew, matter of fact, we also
know from later on in scripture, Jesus knew those who believed
in him and who didn't. He also knew the hearts of every
one of these religious leaders. And he knew the motive behind
why they were coming. He knew that they knew all this
points to Messiah. If you remember when we were
doing our exposition through these passages of scripture several
years ago, we've seen that at several points, they knew this
was Messiah because of what they were seeing, but they just refused
to accept that. But if you look in verse three,
Jesus cut right to the chase. Jesus answered and said unto
him, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God. So he's telling Nicodemus,
it doesn't matter about all your learning and all your questioning
and all your religiousness, Nicodemus, nobody's going to see the kingdom
of God or understand the word of God except he's born again.
The natural man is not going to be able to receive or understand
these things. Nicodemus saith unto him, how
can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second
time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, verily,
verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of
the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which
is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee,
ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth,
and thou hearest the sound thereof. But canst not tell whence it
cometh, and whither it goeth. So is every one that is born
of the Spirit." So we see that Jesus said one must be born again. Now this being born again, and again there is a word used, rebirth. that is used, that's kind of
an unfortunate word, as well as regeneration, to be used for
this. To be born again means, if you
take it in one context, is to be reborn. But what does Jesus
say here? If you look down in verse six,
he makes a distinction between two different births, right?
He said, that which is born of the flesh is flesh. There's one
birth. That which is born of the spirit
is spirit. That's a second birth. So he's,
he's talking about two different births, not one birth done again,
right? Everybody follow on that what
I'm saying if I'm not being clear just let me know and I'll try
to Make it clarified a little bit better. So whenever Jesus
says one must be born again He's not talking about Experiencing
the same kind of birth now a lot of people say no he what he was
talking about Nicodemus saying that you know mistaken and thinking
we're talking about a physical birth and OK, how can a man go
back into the womb again and be physically born again? So
Jesus said, no, you have to have a rebirth. OK, well, that don't
make sense either, does it? Because he just said, no, Nicodemus,
you've got that wrong. We're not talking about a physical
birth. So if he's talking, if rebirth is the term, then or
a or a being born again of the same kind, then we're talking
about that which is born of the flesh. And he's not talking about
going back into the womb when he says being born again. He's
talking about something not of physical nature, but of spiritual
nature. That's why he made that distinction in the two different
kinds of birth, being born of the spirit and being born of
the flesh. He said that which is born of flesh is flesh. The only thing that flesh can
produce is the things of the flesh. That which is born of
flesh is flesh. But that which is born of the
spirit, that's the being born again. You have to be born not
only of the flesh, but you have to be born of the spirit, being
born again of the spirit, not of the flesh. Are you gonna be
able to enter the kingdom of heaven? But notice he didn't
tell Nicodemus how to do that, right? You've probably got this on your
bookshelf if you've been an Armenian, and you've probably read this
if you don't have it on your bookshelf, or you've probably
heard of this, but Billy Graham wrote a book one time about how
to be born again. Jesus is not telling Nicodemus
how to be born again. He's telling Nicodemus how one
is born again. See, there's a big difference
in that. You cannot get born again. You cannot do anything
to be born again. You cannot make yourself be born
again. Can a leopard change its spots?
No. He's telling Nicodemus how being
born again works. Being born again is a birth of
spiritual nature by the Spirit of Christ. It's the Spirit that
bears these people as His. Look at the eighth verse. The
wind bloweth where it listed, and thou hearest the sound thereof,
but can't stop till where it cometh, and where it goeth. So
is everyone that is born of the Spirit. See, the Spirit is the acting
agent of the new birth. That's why He also said that
which is born of the Spirit is spirit. We have to be born. Like begets like, right? Like
begets like. We've seen that in Adam. We see
that principle in the creation, in Genesis. And everything that
was created having its seed within itself, reproduced after its
own kind. And man is no different. Man
is no different. Adam produced after Adam. And
the spirit produces after the spirit. And it produces spiritual
beings, spiritual people. See, that's one of the reasons
why I don't believe that Adam was created spiritually alive, is because that is not lost and
regained again. Jesus said one has to be born
again in the spiritual way. Now, that's being born again. Look at, if you would, Colossians
chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1 and look
with me down at verse 26 or 25 Whereof, I am made a minister
according to the dispensation of God, which is given to me
for you to fulfill the word of God, even the mystery, which
had been hidden from ages and from generations, but now is
made manifest to his saints, to whom God would make known
what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles,
which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Whenever one is born again, the
Bible says that that is having Christ formed in you. Christ
is being formed in you. We have the deposit of the Holy
Spirit given to us. It's the Spirit that comes and
then dwells the believer, right? And that Spirit, the Bible says,
is the Spirit of Christ. So, the Spirit of Christ indwells
the believer, having Christ formed in us, Christ being in us. That's
the hope of glory. See, that's what Jesus was essentially
saying actually in in more simple terms than Paul said. Jesus said unless one is born
again you cannot see or enter the kingdom of heaven. Okay and
Paul is basically saying it the same thing but saying it in a
more broader or a more legalistic,
lawyeristic way of saying it. He's saying that this having
Christ in you is your hope of glory. And how is Christ in us? Christ is in us by the Spirit
of Christ. by the Spirit. Christ is in you. And that's your hope of glory.
That's your hope of seeing, entering, being a part of, receiving all
those things which is His glory. Look with me if you would at
2 Peter chapter 1. 2 Peter 1, and look at verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy
hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled,
and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept
by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed
in this last time." I'm sorry, brethren, I was not 1 Peter,
it's 2 Peter. I can't read my own note here. 2 Peter chapter 1 and verse 4,
that's what I was looking for. or verse three, according as
His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain to
life and godliness through the knowledge of Him that hath called
us to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding great
and precious promises, that by these you might be partakers
of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is
in the world through lust. So another thing about being
quickened is that it is being a partaker of the divine nature. But just like in the previous
verses that we've seen, Jesus Christ is the center place in
this according as His divine power. Whose divine power? We'll look at verse 2. Grace
and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of
God and of Jesus our Lord. Look at the verse before that.
To them who have obtained like precious faith with us through
the righteousness of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. See, Jesus is the center point
of us receiving the divine life, the divine nature, to being partakers
of that life. So quickening, brethren, has
nothing to do with the preacher. It has nothing to do with a preached
message. It has nothing to do with a book,
a Bible, a Sunday school, a teaching time. It has nothing to do with
a tract. It has nothing to do with ten
steps. It has nothing to do with a class
that you go through. Billy Graham says how to get
born again, it has nothing to do with that. Your prayer, your
acceptance, your repentance, your believing, your receiving,
your works of obedience, your dedication to the Lord, none
of that is the source or the cause or
the condition for quickening. The only condition for quickening
is the Spirit of God giving you life based upon Jesus Christ,
not only His finished work, right? His finished work bought it,
effected it, but we're also learned that the Bible says that that Christ has been given power
over all flesh to give eternal life to as many as God has given
Him. And so Christ is also the one
that directs the Spirit when to give life. Yes, the Spirit
is the quickening agent. The Spirit of Christ is the quickening
agent sent by Christ to quicken His people, but it is the discretion
of Christ That's that time of love, that time that love is
set upon us. He's loved us, but the time that
he sets that love and shows that love upon us experientially is
whenever Christ comes by the Spirit and gives us that life.
There is a time appointed. You know, nobody's gonna be born
again before their due time. And again, this was one of the
errors of the missionary movement that thought that quickening
and conversion, of course, I probably assume they believed it was the
same, but they thought that that could be affected by diligent
preaching the gospel, that that would cause people to be born
again, that that would save people from hell, from going to hell.
Well, brethren, every child of grace is quickened at the exact
time that God decides for them to be quickened. And we don't
know when that will be. We can't hurry it up, and guess
what? We can't make it go slower. We can't hinder one from being
quickened. See, that's why I say, brethren,
if you have loved ones who have not been converted, As long as
they are still alive, there's hope because quickening comes
in God's time. You're not speeding it up and
you're not going to slow it down. You're not going to hinder them.
I've heard so many times and I've preached it so many times
how we can be a hindrance to those coming to the Lord. We
can hinder them. We can keep them from coming
to the Lord. Brethren, there ain't nobody
that can keep you coming from the Lord. The only way that somebody
can keep you from coming to the Lord is if they can overcome
the Spirit of God and Christ the sender. That's the only way. Because all that the Father gives
him shall come to him. No ifs, ands, or buts. They're gonna come, and nobody's
gonna stop that. Nobody's gonna hinder that, but
they will come in His time. Quickening is by the hand of
Christ. The agent is the Spirit, but
it comes by Christ because of Christ, and we receive that divine
nature, and we learn that that divine nature is His nature. That's His life. It's His nature. Look at verse, while you're there,
look at, now we go back to 1 Peter chapter one. and look at verse
23. Now I'm going to have to explain
this verse because there's a lot of misconception. I'll be the
first one to admit I also misrepresented this verse in times past. It
says in verse 23, being born again, not of corruptible seed,
but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth
forever. So here again, we see the term
being born again. And how are we born again? Well, according to verse 23 here,
we're being born again by the incorruptible seed or by the
word of God. Now, I'm sure you've probably
all heard this. They think that it's talking
about this, the word of God being the Bible or a sermon or preaching. And that's where Carey and Fuller
and a lot of those men were in error is because they believed
that it was because of the preacher preaching the gospel message
that that gospel message when heard That's what caused one
to be born again. And the term that we use is gospel
quickening. Well, at least that's the term
that I use when I'm talking about this error. What you'll see in
all the reading that you will find is gospel regeneration.
But again, I think regeneration is not the right term. Gospel
quickening. And they believe that people
are quickened by the gospel. that they are born again by the
preaching of the gospel. So it's when one's under the
preaching of the gospel that God, and they say that the spirit
uses the preaching of the gospel as an instrument for quickening. But brethren, that's not what
this verse is saying. Matter of fact, the one that's
in view here, the quickening or the born again agent here
is Jesus Christ. That's who's in view in verse
23. It's not the preaching of the word of God or the Bible
itself. Look with me again, being born again, not of corruptible
seed. Who is the corruptible seed?
Well, that's that which is born of flesh, right? That's Adam.
That's the corruptible seed. See, again, Peter is saying the
same thing Jesus said. That which is born of flesh is
flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Isn't something that's born considered
the seed of the one that bore it, right? So that which is born of flesh,
flesh begets the seed flesh. Spirit begets the seed spirit.
So there is a spiritual seed and there is a fleshly or natural
seed, right? And so here, Peter is contrasting
being born again of a corruptible line or being born again of an
incorruptible line. Being born again Like Jesus said
to Nicodemus, not of the flesh, but being born again of the spirit.
He's contrasting spiritual birth with natural birth. being born
again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible seed." How? By the word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. And they say, aha, there you
go. It's by the word of God. We preach the word of God, teach
the word of God. They read the word of God. That's
what is how they're born again. Well, brethren, may I remind
you that Jesus is the word of God. And even the word there,
if you even want to get to the Greek part of it, the Greek word
behind there is also the same word for Christ in John chapter
one. Logos. It's talking about Jesus. He's the word of God. But how
do we know that it's distinguishing the word as far as Jesus or the
word as far as these spoken words? Well, look with me down at verse
25. Well, of course, we also know that Jesus liveth and abideth
forever, right? But we also know that the Bible
speaks that it will endure forever. The word of God will endure forever,
okay? But the word of God is actually
the word of Christ. He is the word. He is the words
of God. But look at verse 25, if you
would. But the word of the Lord endureth forever. Isn't that
what that just said in verse 23? The word of God that liveth
and abideth forever. Okay? So we're talking about
the same thing. Verse 23 and verse 25 is talking
about the word of the Lord or the word of God that liveth and
abideth forever. Or that endureth forever. But
look at what it says next. And this is the word which by
the gospel is preached unto you. Now, if that's talking about
this preaching or teaching or declaring the words of this book,
then what's that saying? And this is the preaching by
which the preaching of the gospel is preached unto you. No. And this is the word which
by the gospel. What is it? Who does the gospel
preach? What is preached by the gospel?
Isn't it not Christ? The gospel preaches Christ, not
you. Not a sermon, not a preacher.
The gospel preaches Christ. Christ for you, Christ. your
hope of glory. Christ, the one who finished
the work. Christ, the one who took your wrath. Christ, the
one who substituted, who mediated. Christ, the one who stood in
your place. That's what the gospel is preaching.
So Christ is the one who is preached in the gospel. So when it says,
and this is the Word, or and this is the Christ, which by
the Gospel is preached unto you. The Christ who lives and abides
forever. The Christ who has been given
power over all flesh to give, if you'll allow me this phrase,
the born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible. It's
by the Word of God that we are born again. It is
Christ who sends the Spirit in the appointed time, and it's
by His Word that we're made alive. Go, make them alive. It's by the Word of God Himself.
Him. The Word. Capital W. The Word. I'm open for any correction or
criticism on that. according by scripture at least.
I don't wanna hear about what the theologians say or the commentaries
say. But it seems to me brethren that
to be consistent with the scriptures that this is the case. What about
those who are born again but have never
heard the preaching of the gospel? Does the Bible ever give any
reference to people that was born again before they ever heard
the gospel? Well, I believe there is. We
hear of John the Baptist who was filled with the Holy Spirit
in his mother's womb. I would say Cornelius is a great
example of one who exhibited being quickened but had not yet
heard the gospel. We can say the same about Jeremiah,
even Paul maybe. The Bible says that Paul was
separated from his mother's womb. How can you be separated if you
have not been already quickened of God? So quickening is the giving of
life and that giving of life is centered around and based
upon the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the preeminence in quickening. Does anybody have any questions
or any comments before we take a break? Well, Romans 10 backs
you up on that. Let me get turned in. Romans
10 is a justification for gospel regeneration, but they only give
you, they take two passages out of context. you know, and I'm
looking in, you know, verse 14 and 15 is
the ones that pick up, huh? Oh yeah, absolutely. How then
shall they call on him whom they have not believed, and how shall
they believe in him whom they have not heard, and how shall
they hear without a preacher? And then they use the next one
as a justification, but that's when they stop 16, they have not all obeyed the
gospel. For Isaiah said, Isaiah said, Lord, you have to believe
our report. So then back to what you were saying, faith come by
hearing and hearing by the word of God. That cannot be speaking
of the Bible because he says they have, I say, have they not
heard? Yes, verily, there is sound in
all the world. And so he makes a distinction there. He says,
Isaiah is very bold. He said, if I was man of men
that sought me not, and I was a man of men that sought me not, and I was a man of men that sought
me not, and I was a man of men that sought me not, and I was a man of men that sought me not,
and I was a man of men that sought me not, and I was a man of men
that sought me not, and I was a man of men that sought me not,
and I was a man of men that sought me not, and I was a man of men that sought
me not, and I was a man of men that sought me not, and I was
a man of men that sought me not, and I was a man of men that sought
me not, and I was a man of men that sought me not, and I was
a man of men that sought me not, and I was a man of men that sought
me not, and I was a man of men that sought me not, and I was
a man of men that sought me not, and Again, faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God. Now again, the word of God there,
that word there, for the ones who are interested in the Greek,
is not logos, but it is rhema. But again, the word rhema itself
means to, as it's found throughout other places in scripture, means
the command of God. So then faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the command of God. That's the same thing as
what we've just been saying, that quickening comes whenever
Jesus gives the command for the Holy Spirit to go quicken the
soul, to go quicken the sinner. He sends the Spirit to do that. It's by His command. It's only
whenever He does that. But like Brother said, it's exactly
that. How shall they preach except
they be sinned? How beautiful are the feet of
them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings
of good things, but they have not all obeyed the gospel. See,
there are people that have not responded to this. So it's not
a response to something that's heard. It can't be done. It's
not a natural thing. It's not something that can be
done through natural means. It's a spiritual activity, a
spiritual life that comes from a spiritual activity by an agent
that is spiritual from our spiritual head because we are his spiritual
seed. Absolutely. It can't be separated
from election. For example, if you look in 2
Peter, 1 Peter chapter 2, going on down it says, Or, to whom coming as unto a
living stone, disallowed in need of men, but chose them God and
precious. So, I like this verse, Well, and again, verse 16, I
was going to say this a minute ago, but I got sidetracked in
my thinking. In verse 16, Paul is quoting
Isaiah there, right? And if you remember, he's appealing
to what Isaiah said back there. And if you remember, when Isaiah
said, who hath believed our report? He asked that question. And if
you remember, as we've looked at that before, the answer came
with the question that he said, and to whom has the arm of the
Lord been revealed, right? So the ones that believe the
report are the ones to whom God reveals that report. And if you
look through the rest of scripture, you'll find that the revealing
of these things is of a spiritual matter and that they can't be
revealed to the natural mind. They're not revealed to the natural
mind. They're only revealed to the one who has been spiritually
awakened. And so even Paul here in verse 16 is looking at or
using to ground his message what Isaiah himself said, that nobody
will believe the report except for the ones whom the hand of
the Lord reveals it to. So he's saying it doesn't matter how
well you preach, or what you preach, or how often you preach,
or how strong you preach. It doesn't matter that. The ones
who bring the good tidings, the glad tidings, are to the ones
who have been revealed those things. The ones to whom the
Lord has called. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. But if you look before
that, it says, that if thou confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus,
and shall believe in thine heart that God raised him from the
dead." That's believing the report, okay? That's having things revealed
to you. It says, thou shalt be saved,
present tense, meaning that it's already a state of being. They're already, those who believe
those things are saved, are the saved ones. So again, brethren,
every way you look at these things, it's just, to me, as clear as
day. And again, I say, you know, if
there's correction to be had, I'll be glad to have it. But
every time I've heard somebody try to correct on this, it's
always coming with theologians' viewpoints of things. They want
to appeal to Gil or to, you know, to somebody else and what they
say or to some confession of faith. Well, none of the Baptist
brethren before this or that, you know, in this confession.
that's not our rule of faith the confessions of faith are
not our rule of faith just like this church every church throughout
history is not a perfect knowledge church you know we don't all
have the perfect knowledge of everything here and so You know, just because somebody
didn't say it then doesn't mean that it isn't true. Now it is
wonderful to see if there's attesting to things throughout the history,
but the word of God is the word of God. And that's where we,
you know, that's where we have to rest is in what does God's
word say. And again, like I said, many
times we want to point other things in other directions, but
even if you look at some of these words, it doesn't coincide with
what all of Scripture is teaching. You remember what we started
with last week, or at the beginning
of this study, It says, but of him are ye in
Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption, that according as is written,
let he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. And verse
29, that no flesh should glory in his presence. If we have a
great missionary in debt, listen, I tell you what, if you want
to see somebody not glorying in the Lord, but glorying in
their efforts, you pick up a Southern Baptist messenger. Pick up the
Southern Baptist Messenger, the little paper. magazine paper
thing that the Southern Baptists put out. And you read through
there and you'll see, pat me on the back, how many baptisms
we had, who led the revival, how many people were saved, how
many people were rededicated, how many people volunteered for
the ministry, for this or that. Listen, it is all about the glory
is in. And listen, that's exactly what
those revival reports in the back were all about. So we could
see which evangelist was getting her done. And they talked about
this stuff. And you know, at growing up, We'd go to the evangelism conferences,
the yearly evangelism conference, and usually it was held in Oklahoma
City at one of the big churches there. But, you know, at that
time they would have one of the big Southern Baptist preachers,
well-known preachers come in and they would preach at these
things. And there would be a time during
this evangelism conference, which was usually a two-day conference,
that they would have publicly give out awards for churches
between zero and 99 people. Churches between 100 and 299. Churches between 300 and 599
size. They would give out the awards
for who had the most baptisms. They would give certificates
out. And have you come up on the stage and they'd give you
a certificate. And one year, our church won
that. We had the most baptisms. And
my grandpa refused to take the certificate. And whenever he
was asked about it, he said, why are we coming up and being
patted on the back for something that the Lord has done? I mean,
and not only that, he said, even though we are the ones who were
baptizing, the act of baptism was the command of Christ. He
told us that those who are made disciples, that we are to baptize.
So it isn't nothing special about us. We are doing what the Lord
commanded us to do. And it isn't nothing special
about the people who were baptized. We can't say nothing about them
because they also are commanded of Christ to be baptized. scripture that came to my mind
in 1st John 5-1. Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God. Yep. Now people can take that to a
vague extreme and just say, oh yeah, Jesus is the Christ. The
Mormons believe Jesus is the Christ. The Catholics believe
Jesus is the Christ. but it's the Christ that you
are talking about. You know, is it the Christ that
actually is a savior or the Christ that has a potential to save?
There are many Christs in the world, but there's only one Jesus
Christ who is the true Messiah. And so, yeah, it's a, it's a
crazy thing. Any other comments on this? Good,
good discussion there, brother. I actually left one out. It's
a short one in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1, and you hath he quickened
who were dead in trespasses and sin. So another term that the
Bible uses is quickened. It's usually the term I like
to use is quickened, but the word means to be made alive.
That's what quickened means. But anyway, all right, let's
take a break and we'll