I want you to realize that this
is one discourse. All the way from John chapter
3 verse 1 down to verse 21 is one discourse of our Lord Jesus
Christ with this man, Nicodemus. Nicodemus. This discourse of our Lord with
Nicodemus was that this man was a master of Israel, he was a
ruler of the Jews, he was very pious and religious, yet he came
to Jesus by night because of his reputation. He came because he was ashamed
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He came to Jesus by night for
fear of displaying any affection to him that he might lose. Listen,
if you're gonna ever, if you'll ever come to Christ, you'll lose
everything. Now I want you to understand
that. I'm not a car salesman, I'm not a salesman of the scriptures,
I'm just telling you the way it is. When a man comes to Christ,
it's then he loses everything. But then he gains everything,
doesn't he? He loses everything. I've read of this man Nicodemus,
and according to tradition, he lost everything in the end. He
lost everything that he was trying to hold. This night, he lost
it. And I tell you, he lost it willingly.
And this man, he came by night, and he came displaying his knowledge. He said, We know that our teacher
come from God, for no man could do these miracles that thou doest,
except God be with him. He expected Jesus to acknowledge
his knowledge. He expected him to give praise
to Nicodemus, but that's not what Christ did. Matter of fact,
Christ cuts right to the heart of the issue. He cuts right to
the heart, and this is a good lesson for us. If we would witness
of Christ, we should cut right to the chase. We should cut right
to the issue of man. It is man is dead. That's the issue. The issue is
not race, religion, culture. The issue is sin. The issue is
man's heart. And man needs regeneration. That's what Christ is saying.
Accept a man, be born again. He cannot see the kingdom of
God. He cuts right to the heart. Man
is born spiritually dead and needs life. This is the great
necessity of Adam's race, is the new birth. Paul speaks of
that, he says, you who hath God quickened who were dead in trespasses
and sins. This is the experience of grace
to every believer, is that we have been quickened Quickened
from the dead, raised from death to light, brought from darkness
into the kingdom of light. This is of our necessity. Spiritual
condition is also referred to by Jesus' blindness. You remember
when He healed that man that was born blind? He healed that
man who was born blind. And the man believed. He said,
Believe thou in the Son of God. And he said, Who is he, Lord?
And he said, I'm Him. And he said, I believe. And this
man believed Christ. He believed because he was born
again. He was able to see. And so spiritual
deadness is likened to blindness. And Jesus said, For judgment
I am come into the world, that they which see not might see. And those that say they see should
be made blind. And those Jews, you remember,
they said, are we blind? Are you saying we're blind? Jesus
said, if you were blind, then should you see? But because you
say we see, because you say everything's fine, because you say you're
righteous, therefore your sin remaineth. And so what does man
need? He needs a new birth. And the
new birth is not caused by any outward thing, but rather the
Spirit of God is the cause of the new birth. Except a man be
born of water, Jesus said, even. That word is better translated
instead of and. It's better translated even.
Even of the Spirit. He cannot enter the kingdom of
God. Here we see the necessity of
the Holy Spirit to quicken us to life, to cleanse us from our
sin by the sprinkling of the blood of Christ. The Holy Spirit
must come and give life, otherwise there can be no life. The Spirit
of God is the one that does this. How many make professions of
faith and decisions, or perform some ritual of service and call
that the new birth? That's not the new birth. The
new birth is not anything that is done in the flesh. It is something
done only by the Sovereign Spirit. He that is born of the Spirit
of Christ, We are set at liberty, not thrust back under the law,
but rather free from the law, free from condemnation. We who
are born again. And our hearts in faith continually
look to Jesus Christ and His perfect salvation. That's what
it is to be born again. Well, who is born again? Whosoever
the Spirit will give life to. That's who's born again. to only the ones that the Spirit
comes. As the wind bloweth where it
listeth, you can hear the sound thereof, but you can't tell where
it's coming and where it's going. So is everyone born of the Spirit
of God. Who's going to be born of the
Spirit of God? Whomsoever the Spirit comes. You cannot merit
Him, you cannot force Him, you cannot manipulate Him. He is
sovereign and He gives life to whomsoever He will give life. And when He gives life, there
is life. That's the news. That's good. To us who have life, we know
this, the Spirit of God gave us life. And it is not of ourself. Nothing we've done, nothing we've
merited. It is a gift of God's holy and
sovereign grace. God has given us the new birth
according to His sovereign will and purpose. He has quickened
us. according to His will. Look in
John chapter 1. This is a very important verse
of Scripture. John chapter 1, verse 11, He
came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many
as received Him, to them gave He the power, or that word power
means right, to be called the sons of God,
even to them that believe on His name. Who are the sons of
God? They are those that believe on
His name. They are those that receive Him. You have no right
to be called a child of God if you do not believe on Jesus Christ. I know everybody says, well,
everybody's a child of God. That is a lie. Everybody's a
creature of God. That's true. He lighteth the
light of every man. He gives life to everyone. We
got a new baby in the nursery. Who gave that baby life? It was
God. I tell you what that baby needs is new life. A new heart. Because she's born dead. Dead
in sin. But as many as believe, they
are the sons of God. How are we the sons of God? Which
were born, not of blood, not of kinship, nor of the will of
the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Why are you
born again by the will of God? God willed it so. Who can stay
His hand or say unto Him, What doest Thou? I know I didn't. When He said, Live, you know
what I did? I lived. That's it. When God speaks to your soul,
there's nothing else a man can do but live. This is sovereignty. This is His divine decree. And
what is the means of this blessed birth? Even the preaching of
the gospel. That's what Christ says to Nicodemus
in the text. He said, we speak that which
we do know and testify what we have seen. That's the Word of
God. The preaching of the gospel. We testify. What am I doing now? I am testifying to you. I am
witnessing to you the truth of this text by the experience of
grace in my own heart. I am witnessing to you. And you
know what you are doing? Who have the same experience?
You are witnessing back saying, that's it. That's it. I know that to be true. You testify,
the Spirit of God testifies with your spirit that these things
are true. That's how we know we are the sons of God. If we
have the Spirit of God testifying to us of these things. So I testify
to you, but some of you receive not our testimony. Yet, He still gives the testimony. Look at that in verse 14, "...as
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have everlasting life." The Gospel message is the means
by which the Spirit of God gives life. I don't know why men, I do by
nature I know, but they rebel against the preaching of the
gospel. They just do. They despise it. Paul says they that perish call
this preaching foolishness. But to us, To us, it is the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. How did you believe? It was through the preaching
of the gospel. You heard by a man's sin of God
to declare the Word to you. You heard it and you believed
it. And what was that faith and hearing? It was not natural, but supernatural
by the Spirit of God. And we receive this testimony. We believe it. We hear the message
and we believe on Christ. And that's the evidence of the
new birth. You want to know if you have
the new birth? Here's the evidence. Do you believe
on the Son of God? People are confused. Faith does
not cause the new birth. Faith is the evidence of the
new birth. Faith is the evidence of the
new birth. And those who believe, Christ
said, you shall never perish. You shall never perish. Those
who have part in the first resurrection shall have not be... The second death shall not have
power over you. That's what it says, Revelation
20, verse 6. It says, you that have part in
the first resurrection. What's the first resurrection?
It's the resurrection of the Spirit. It is the resurrection
of the new birth. You that have part in that, the
second death will not touch you, will not hurt you. You have no
part in that second death. and truly one day soon we will
know what it's like to really live. You hear people say that, well
man, you just haven't lived till you've done this. You just haven't
lived. I used to, when I was in the
military, I used to jump out of airplanes. I think that was
an exhilarating thing. People say, well man, you haven't
lived till you jumped out of an airplane. No, no. I haven't truly lived. I haven't
truly experienced the fullness of life. And I won't by any means
of this world. One day soon I will experience
life in the fullness as God intended. I'll have eternal life. Often
I wonder what even the air smells like in heaven. What a true breath. really feels like, to breathe
in and live. One day soon we will experience
it. But now let's look at the second part of this. In verse
16 through verse 21, the Lord here expresses three great loves. Three great loves. The love of God for the world, the love of men for darkness
and the love of believers for the light. Three great loves. First of all, and above all,
the love of God. He says, for God so loved the
world. This is the reason for the new
birth. This is the reason the Spirit of God has come. This
is the reason Christ has come into the world, is rooted in
the love of God. The love of God. The love of
God is one of His great attributes, as revealed in Holy Scripture.
We know this, that God is holy. God is just. God is all-powerful. God is omniscient. He knows all
things. God is omnipresent. He is everywhere at once. These
truths of God. These attributes of God we say
are immutable, unchangeable attributes because this, God says, I am
God, I change not. We like to change our appearance. Why? Because it's imperfect. We change because it's imperfect. Isn't that why we change our
habits or something else? We're changing all the time.
Because we are imperfect beings, we change. But because God is
a perfect being, He has no need of change. He is the eternal,
holy, omnipotent, omniscient, immutable God. And so are His
attributes. immutable, they're unchangeable,
including His love. You know this, that John says
this, God is love. Just as much as God is justice,
God is holiness, God is love. God is love. But His love is
not as the world views love. This is the hardest thing, this
is impossible for men to do, is to understand the love of
God apart from His own. But our love is imperfect. Our view of love is just not,
doesn't measure up. For men only see the love of
God by nature as it relates to their own fallen view of love.
To us, love is a passion. It's hot or it's cold. Man, I
surely... Oh, I love you. Oh, I hate you. Same person. Same person. And sure enough, our love is
hot and then it's cold. Our love fluctuates. It's up
and it's down. And what we do, which is an extreme
sin and error, is try to impose our frail view of love upon God. We try to relate our love to
His. And so men think God's love to
be much like their own. Isn't that what God told them?
He said, Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such in one
as Thyself. Now I do know this, that God
in Scripture does relate His love in human expressions so
we may understand. Isn't that right? You remember the wedding feast.
that a king had prepared a feast for his son and given his son
a bride. So what is he comparing the love
to? The love of a husband to a wife. That's what he's comparing the
love of Christ to. He compares it to a chastening
father. A father who loves his son chastens
his children. You know, I chasten my children
not because it's easy. I chasten them because I love
them. I desire them not to fall into dangers and difficulties
and troubles. And so we chasten them in love. But God likens that love to His
own. For whom does the Father not
chasten? If you are not chastised, then
are you bastards and not sons. But what husband would dare compare
their love to His? What father would dare compare
their love to His? Because our love is always fluctuating and mutable. But God's love is
never fluctuating. Do you get that? His love never changes. As high as His love has been
from eternity, all the way through the portals of time into eternity
future, His love does not diminish one bit for His people. Not one. His love is an eternal
love. He said that. He said, I have
loved thee with an everlasting love. Because God is love, His love
is eternal and unchangeable and immutable as His being. So that all who are loved of
God are loved eternally. Immutably. Forever. If we with ink the ocean fill,
and were the skies of parchment made, were every stalk on earth
a quill, were every man a scribe by trade, to write the love of
God above would drain the ocean dry. Nor could the scroll contain
the whole, though stretched from sky to sky. How deep, how infinite
is the love of God. So then, for whom is this love
given? The scripture says, for God so
loved the world. God so infinitely, immutably
loved the world. This most definitely, this most
definitely does not mean what false religion supposes. That
God would love every man without exception. We know this clearly
by the Word of God that tells us so. Tells us so. Go to Malachi. Malachi verse chapter 1 and verse
2. I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet you say, wherein hast thou
loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother?
This is his response. Was not Esau Jacob's brother?
Saith the Lord. Yet I loved Jacob, and I hated
Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the
dragons of the wilderness." God loved Jacob and hated Esau. And Paul, in Romans 9, clarifies
this to be the election of God. That before the children were
born, not having done good or evil, that the purpose of God,
according to election, might stand. He saith, The elder shall
serve the younger, as it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau
have I hated. Psalm 11 and verse 5 said, The
Lord trieth the righteous, but the wicked, and him that loveth
violence, the Lord hateth. Even from the lips of Christ,
we read this, go to John chapter 17. I'll show you it from the
lips of our Lord Jesus Christ that this does not mean with
all men without exception. John chapter 17, beginning in verse 6, I have
manifest Thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the
world. Thine they were, and thou gavest
them me, and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that
all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have
given unto them the words which thou gavest me, and they have
received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee,
and they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for them,
I pray not for the world. but for them which thou gavest
me, for they are thine. Who are these? Now, if we were
to include this word, world, in these contexts, as all men
without exception, this context would be meaningless. Our Lord
Jesus Christ makes it very clear that His people will be brought
out of the world And they will believe on Him,
and He prays for them. Who? Those that He loves. He prays for those that He has
been given by the Father. He does not pray for all men
without exception. He prays only for some men who
were given to Him in a covenant of grace from the foundation
of the world. And His love is revealed to us
in the new birth. You know, I knew nothing of His
love. I knew of it in my head. I heard it. before. But I knew
nothing of it by experience until the new birth. But the joy of this is that even
while we were yet sinners, His love for us never waned. It was always perpetually, eternally
immutable. Therefore, the Scripture says,
in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ. Therefore, the love of the Father
is set on men, fallen men, sons of Adam's sinful race, men who
were dead in sins, but God, who was rich in mercy for His great
love, wherewith He loved us, even while we were yet in sins,
dead in sins, hath quickened us together With Christ. How long ago has
God quickened Christ? How long ago did God raise Him
from the dead? Well, you know what? You that
are loved of God were raised when He was. Even before our souls were raised
to life, we were raised together with Christ. Loved of God from
eternity. Immutably inseparable from His
love. And in time, there was nothing
to stop the hand of God from revealing His love by Jesus Christ
to us. By grace, you are saved. The
love of God for His elect extends back from eternity. His love
put us in union with Christ. Therefore, our salvation, our
holiness, our righteousness, our pardon, our forgiveness of
sins, our acceptance with God, listen, they are eternally tied
to Jesus Christ. Eternally tied to Jesus Christ
in love. Here's the great cause of our
election and salvation, even the immutable love of God for
us. So we who are the elect of God,
God had before promised to gather us. Those that God loved, He
promises to gather. Look at that in Ezekiel. See
the covenant of God's mercy. This is a covenant of grace in
a very concise passage of Scripture. Ezekiel 36. Ezekiel 36 and verse
24. For I will take you Isn't that a blessing? We would
have never come. I will take you from among the
heathen and gather you out of all countries and I will bring
you into your own land, your own inheritance. He will gather
us Then He will sprinkle us with clean water, and we shall be
clean from all your filthiness and all your idols. Will I cleanse
you? A new heart will I give you. A new spirit will I put
within you. And I will take away the stony
heart out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." In other
words, we had a stony heart of obstinance toward God, rebellion. But He takes the rebellion out
of the way. He gives us a heart of love. Now do you understand why you
love God? Why you have any love for God
at all is because He first loved you and gave Himself for you. So those loved of God, chosen
of God, are gathered, are drawn. Isn't that what he said in Jeremiah
31, 3? He said, I have loved you with an everlasting love.
Therefore, with loving kindness have I drawn thee. If you've
been drawn, it is because of the love of God, the eternal
love of God. therefore the children of promise
we are the children of promise who are the elect and so what is the evidence of
this great love go back to your text the evidence of this great
love he said for God so loved the world that he gave his only
begotten son The greatest gift of love and manifestation of
God's love is not riches, it's not health, it's not earthly
joy. Now that is what everybody else
thinks God's love is. That if you're happy and you're
healthy, then God loves you. If you're blessed with riches
and honor and wealth and fame, God loves you. Matter of fact,
most likely that's the opposite. Their scripture tells us not
many mighty, not many noble are called. I'll tell you, there
are not many rich men ever called. There are some. Praise God, there
are some. That's what Queen Elizabeth said.
She said, when she read that, she said, thank God it said not
many instead of not any. Not many. Some are, but very
few. So that's not a sign of God's
love, that's not the manifestation of God's love. What is? That
God gave His only Son. That is the manifestation of
love. That God gave the best gift He
could give. He gave His only begotten Son
the highest gift, the most precious to His heart. God gave Him to
be the representative of His elect people. For as by one man's
sin entered into the world, by his disobedience many were made
sinners, even so by the righteousness of one shall many be made righteous. You see, God gave His Son in
love for us so that we should be made the righteousness of
God in Him. This is His purpose. This is
why He came. Now if you want confidence, if
you want any assurance at all, you must see this. That He did
accomplish what He purposed to accomplish. That He did make
those He loved righteous. God sent His Son not for a purr-adventure. He did not give His Son's blood
so that perhaps somebody somewhere might Choose Him. No. He gave His Son for the express
purpose of saving those He loved. That's why He gave Him. He gave
Him to be a successful, victorious Redeemer. Gospel of God's love. This is
it. that is eternal, immutable, unchangeable,
God so loved that Christ should come and redeem his elect by
the suffering and death upon the cross, and which he did on
the cross once for all, once for all, once forever, the love
of God was displayed, and the love of God accomplished redemption. Should we not be able to face
every foe with that? Is there any difficulty that
we could not face with that understanding, with that faith in Christ? That
He actually did accomplish all our salvation. For there is none other name
given among men whereby we must be saved. You know who must be
saved? The elect. They must be saved. Why? The glory of Christ depends
on it. Do you get that? If one of the elect were to fail,
the glory of Christ would fail. Isn't that what He said? He's
our surety. He's our guarantee. He's our
representative. And everyone that the Father
gave Him, Jesus said, they shall come to Me. And Him that cometh
to Me, I will never cast you out. I'll never leave you. I'll
never forsake you. Why? Because I've always loved
you. From eternity I've loved you. The apostle says in John chapter
8, Romans chapter 8, if God has given us his son, how shall he not with him freely
give us all things? Behold now, sinner, God knoweth
His elect. Christ knoweth His sheep. They
believe on Him. But I don't know who they are,
and neither do you. This is why the Scripture tells
us to cast the word at a venture. The sower went forth to sow,
and he cast the seed at a venture. Isn't that what the farmers in
this day, they didn't go out and hoe down one row and put
the seed in. They cast the seed at a venture.
But I tell you this, the whole thing resides in the hands of
God as to the ground and the seed. God prepares the ground
of the heart. He plows up the heart. And the seed is cast by us at
a venture, but it's not a venture to God. It lands exactly where
He purposes it to. And when the seed lands on that
good ground, it grows. It grows. Do you know all there is to know
about the love of God? Can you fathom it? Can you even
dip down and get a thimble full? I tell you, it's as vast as the
ocean. It's as infinite as the stars. It never changes. I'm so glad. His love for me
never moves. Yours does. Mine does, but His never does. For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son. I'm going to go over these really
quickly. The second one is the love of men for darkness. Jesus said this, For God sent
not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the
world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not
condemned. But he that believeth not is
condemned already, because he hath not believed on the name
of the only begotten Son of God. When Jesus came into the world,
He didn't come to condemn it. Why? Because it was already condemned. When Adam sinned, that first
sin, the whole world, the whole race was condemned. The whole
race was condemned. So He came not to condemn the
world. but to save. And this gospel of God's love,
this eternal, immutable, unchangeable love that is preached, that God gave His Son to die
in the place of convicted, dead sinners, and yet man by nature
despises this message. He despises the message Jesus
said in verse 19. This is the condemnation. That
light has come into the world and men loved darkness rather
than light because their deeds were evil. The condemnation of
the world is this. They hate Christ. You want to know what it is to
love darkness? It is to hate Christ. Now, nobody hates the Jesus of
this day. The Jesus who's trying to save
somebody, nobody hates that poor pathetic man. Matter of fact,
they're sympathetic to him, aren't they? They're kind of... you
feel sorry for him. Poor thing, he died, but he can't
save anybody. I don't have any use for that
one. What I'm talking about is the Lord Jesus Christ. Sovereign
Christ, the one who actually saves Men hate that. They despise it. Why? Because they love their sin more
than they love Christ. Therefore, because of their love
of darkness, they will not and cannot come to Him. It is a chain about their neck
that they cannot remove. If you're lost, you should try
this. Suppress sin for a day and see how far you get. Suppress
it for a minute and see how far you get. Why can't you suppress it? Listen,
you can't suppress it because you love it and it chains you. Do you not see then how helpless
man is? Man is utterly dependent upon
God to show mercy. And yet what does man do? He
still defies God in the face of his need. He despises the message of helplessness. Now man loves Jesus as a crutch,
as a help. I need Jesus to help me. I can do some of this, but He's
got to do the rest. No, you can't do anything. You know, men hate that. And
see, as a newborn child of God, I absolutely love it, because
He's all my salvation. But men despise this, and they
will not come to Christ. But now then, notice the last,
those who love the light. For everyone that doeth evil
hateth the light, neither cometh the light, lest his deeds should
be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh
to the light. What is that? He that doeth what
is right. You know what's right? To bow
down at the feet of Jesus Christ. That's right. To come in the knowledge of the
truth that you are totally to pray. and can by no means save yourself
or help him to save you. We come like Mephibosheth, lame
on our feet, fetched. We didn't even come on our own
will. We were fetched. And yet when we were brought
to the light, exposed of our sins, Look what we found. He that doeth the truth cometh
to the light, that his deeds may be manifest. What was our
deeds when we came to the light? What was our deeds? Our deeds
were nothing more than sin. We saw only our sin. And I tell
you now, is that not what we still see more and more of? Our
sin when we come to the light? We come and we are exposed. But
notice, what causes us to love the light is that when we are
brought under the light, we find our deeds are wrought in God. What does that mean? It means
that our deeds are Christ's deeds. His righteousness is ours. So when God looks on you, who
love the light, I love the light because when the light comes
and God reveals the light, He exposes this. He says, I cannot find any sin. Jeremiah chapter 50 and verse 20. In those days and at that time,
saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for. And none. And none. How many sins will
be found upon us in the eyes of God? None. And the sins of Judah, and they
shall not be found, for I will pardon them whom I reserve, whom
I love. See, those that God loves, when
He convicts them, they love Him. and we find all our salvation
in Christ. Therefore, we love the light.
We love Christ. Why? For God so loved. That's why we love. May God even
give us more a heart of love and faith for Christ. Pray Lord
bless us.