If you have your Bibles this
morning, let's turn to John chapter 3. John chapter 3. And as you're turning there,
I'll give you a little background
on this Bible lesson. So back in November, December,
before the first of the year, Brother Gabe had asked me to
bring a Bible study. And my heart and my thoughts
was on John 3, chapter 14. I'm sorry. John chapter 3 verse 14, where
the Lord there had told Nicodemus as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness. And anyway, so that's where I'd
started then. And, of course, when I tried
to bring that Bible study, I had to go and begin at John chapter
3, the first of the chapter, and go down. Well, I didn't get
to verse 14. So Gabe asked me here a week
or so ago to bring the Bible study again this morning. And
I thought, well, I'll go back to John chapter 3 and go to verse
14. And so I go back to the first
of the chapter and start. And guess what? We're not going
to make it to verse 14 again this morning. but it's a wonderful,
wonderful passage of scripture. So let's begin this morning and
I will read down the verse 15, but we won't get that far, but
I do want to read the passage first. So beginning in John chapter
two, verse 23, is where the context of this occasion begins. So John chapter two, beginning
in verse 23. Now, when he was in Jerusalem
at the Passover, and this is speaking of our Lord, in the
feast day, many believed in his name when they saw the miracles
which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself
unto them. because he knew all men. And
need it not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was
in man. There was a, beginning now in
chapter three, verse one, there was a man of the Pharisees named
Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night
and said unto him, Rabbi, we know thou art a teacher come
from God, for no man can do these miracles which thou doest, except
God be with him. And Jesus answered and said unto
him, barely, barely, I say unto thee, except a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said unto him,
how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter in the second
time into his mother's womb and be born? And Jesus answered,
barely, barely, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water
and of 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 say unto thee, you must be born again. The wind
bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof,
but canst tell whence it cometh and whether it goeth. So is everyone
that is born of the spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto
him, how can these things be? And Jesus answered and said unto
him, art thou a master in Israel and knowest not these things?
Barely, barely I say unto thee, we speak that which we do know
and testify that we have seen, and yet you receive not our witness.
If I had told you earthly things and you believe not, how shall
you believe if I tell you heavenly things? And no man hath ascended
up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the son
of man, which is in heaven. And 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 eternal
life. Now, in our first Bible study,
We looked at this and we began back in verse 23 and probably
went down to a verse around verse three. And the thing that we
noted, and I'm just doing a brief review so we can kind of set
for the rest of the Bible study, but we kind of done a brief review.
I would like to do a brief review right now and note in verse 23
of chapter two, what it says, that many believed on his name
when they saw the miracles, verse 23. But note verse 24 again,
but Jesus did not commit himself unto them. And we looked at that
word commit and defined it, and we found that the word means
to believe, that Jesus, our Lord, did not believe. He had no confidence
in, in their faith. and their faith was not a saving
faith. And if you'll notice verse one
of chapter three, it says, there was a man of the Pharisees named
Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night
and said unto him, Rabbi, we know, we, we meaning he is representing
or he is a part of those who believed on his name when they
saw the miracles. So Nicodemus and these who believe
our Lord has no confidence in their faith. Nicodemus says, thou art a master
come from God. He says, and we know this, we
know this because of the miracles. That's Nicodemus' That's why
he tells the Lord that we believe. And I want you to look at John
3, verse 3, and look at the Lord's reply. Except a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God. And again, as we said before,
our Lord is refuting Nicodemus here in this response. He's responding
to what Nicodemus has said. Nicodemus said, we believe that
you are from God because of the miracles. And our Lord says,
except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Well, what he's saying is you cannot know what you say you
know, based on seeing miracles. Our Lord is not revealed to men's
hearts because they see things with their eyes. And when we
looked at this first, even a little closer, And we looked at these
words, our Lord said he cannot see. He cannot see the kingdom
of God. He's saying you cannot perceive. You can't perceive God. You can't
perceive spiritual things. And speaking of the kingdom of
God is speaking of the reign of God, his kingdom, his reign. And then that of God, is not
our God, the Lord Jesus Christ? So when we look at this verse,
we see, or we can see that it's saying, except a man be born
again, he cannot perceive the kingdom, the reign of the Lord
Jesus Christ. In other words, what our Lord
is telling Nicodemus is, Nicodemus, you can't perceive me. You don't
know who I am. based on what you're telling
me. And Nicodemus did not see Christ. A man cannot believe
unless, as our Lord said, he has been born again. He must
be spiritually regenerated. He has to be given life. spiritual life does not come
because we have seen miracles. There's many who would profess
that, is there not? In religion, there's those who
have seen things and now they believe because they have seen
some miracle. Or for some, they would profess
to believe because of circumstances. And I have heard wondrous circumstances
of people to where Wondrous things have happened, that a need was
met, or maybe a life was healed, or something, and then now because
of what they had seen, now they would say that they believed. But circumstances does not cause
a man to believe. And then I've heard those also
maybe speak of death experiences. I've certainly seen these on,
you know, TV. Larry King or somebody would,
interviewing somebody, and they would, I mean, tell a story.
You know, they've come out of the body, and they look down,
there's the doctor, or whatever. And then, you know, now they're
absolutely certain of life after death, or certain of God and
his character, or whatever. But those things do not. are
not according to the scriptures. They have no bearing on life. They have no bearing on spiritual
life. Remember the rich man in hell, remember when he cried
unto the Lord and he said, raise Lazarus and send him to my brothers. And Lazarus, his argument was,
I have come in this terrible place and I'm under the wrath
of God and I've got four brothers who are yet alive. And I don't
want them to come here. And Abraham, if you would send
Lazarus, if you would raise Lazarus up from the dead and send him
to my brothers and tell them not to come to this awful place,
then they would believe. And Abraham's response to him
was they have Moses and the prophets. If they won't believe Moses and
the prophets, neither will they believe Lazarus should he be
raised from the dead. So you see, from our passage
and from the scriptures, life and faith, faith does not come
from anything natural. It does not come from seeing
anything with these eyes. it must come from our Lord. So where does spiritual life
come from? Where does believing come from? Well, look at verse five in our
text. Chapter three, verse five. And Jesus answered, verily, verily,
I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of spirit,
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. He cannot enter into
the reign of Christ. So this water, what is this water
that we read about in this passage? This water is Christ. It's of
Christ. It's his life. And I will tell
you, I remember some years ago, as I was reading this passage
and come across this, you know, water and spirit and trying to
understand, well, what is this water? And I've learned, I don't
need to make this complicated. I don't need to make this complicated. Turn with me over, if you will,
to 1 John chapter five, and we'll read a few verses in John five,
or 1 John. First John five in verse eight. And there are three that bear
witness in the earth, the spirit and the water and the blood. And these three agree in one
water that is our Lord's life and his blood That is our Lord's
death. David said in Psalm 42 one, as
the heart or as the deer painted after the water brooks, so does
my heart, so pained my soul after thee, oh God. So pained my soul after thee,
oh Lord. So paineth my soul after thee,
O Emmanuel. O God with us, O our Lord Jesus
Christ. He is the water of life. And then secondly, in verse five,
back in John chapter three, he says that we must be born
of spirit. And this is speaking of God's
Holy Spirit, the work of the Spirit. And there's some things
that the work of the Spirit is not. It's not emotions, and these
crazy things you see in this life that we see around us, it's
not feelings. How many times have you heard
say, well, I feel the Spirit, or the Spirit was there? I can
tell you years ago, walking out of a service in religion, and people talking
about the spirit being there. And I asked myself, was that
the spirit of God? They were acting and going on. Was that the spirit of God? Well,
it wasn't. See, the spirit always, God,
the Holy Spirit, God's spirit always, always, always teaches
the things of Christ. He does not bring attention to
himself, but to Christ. John 3, John 16, verse 13 says,
how about when he, the spirit of truth has come, he will guide
you in all truth. for he shall not speak of himself. He'll speak of Christ. In John
15, 26, he says, but when the comforter is come, when God,
the Holy Spirit is come, whom I will send unto you from my
father, even the spirit of truth, which proceeded from the father,
he shall testify of me. So for a man to be born again,
God, the Holy Spirit, it takes the water, the things of Christ
and the spirit. That is how a man is born again. Now, John three, verse six, looking
at verse six, that which is born of flesh is flesh. And that which is born of spirit
is spirit. This is Pretty simple. What our Lord is saying, of flesh
is flesh. Of spirit is spirit. That's what he's telling Nicodemus.
Of flesh, our Lord wrote, Genesis 6, 12, and God looketh upon the
earth and behold, it was corrupt for all flesh. had corrupted
his way upon the earth. In Romans 7, Paul said, for I
know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. Natural faith that comes from
the flesh is of no value. False religion. is of flesh. The faith that Nicodemus was
speaking of here in this passage earlier, that was of flesh. Now, what about of spirit? Let's read verse eight. The wind bloweth where it listeth,
and hearest the sound thereof, but can't tell where it cometh
and whether it goeth. So is everyone that is born of
God. Now, what does this verse mean?
So the wind bloweth where it lifteth. Well, the wind here
is speaking of God's spirit. And I hope you find that this
to be the blessing to you as it was to me. But the wind bloweth
where it listeth. What does this word listeth mean? It means wills. The wind blows
where it wills. It means determines. The wind,
God the Holy Spirit works or blows where he determines. It means purposes. God's Holy Spirit moves where
he purposes. And it means loves. God's Holy Spirit moves where
it loves. Now you think about that. Where
it delights. Listeth also means delights. takes pleasure. The spirit moves
where it takes pleasure. So where does the wind blow?
That's a good question. The wind blows where you find
sinners. That's where God is pleased. That's where God is delighted
to move and to work. God delights to show mercy. He loves saving sinners. He takes great pleasure. He takes
great pleasure in showing mercy. Of his own will begat he us with
the word of truth. If you go to the day of Pentecost,
There on that day, which is, I think it marked 40 days after
the ascension of our Lord, but there at the day of Pentecost,
I think is an example of our text. You'll find that the disciples
who had sat under the Lord for all these, well, three, three
and a half years, they had sat under his teaching and he had
told them many things. And how many times have we read
in the scripture where they would look at each other and question,
what did he mean by that? What did he say? What was really
the meaning of that? And he would oftentimes turn
around and give them correction or give them explanation. Now,
oftentimes they didn't get it even then. But on the day of
Pentecost, on the day of Pentecost, the Lord, God's Holy Spirit,
blew. And these men who had sat under
him for three and a half years, under the Lord Jesus Christ himself,
under his teaching, on the day of Pentecost, God the Holy Spirit
took the things of Christ and revealed it to them. And all
of a sudden, all of a sudden, they understood. They understood. And they began preaching. God, the Holy Spirit moved upon
these men, and they began preaching to some of the very ones that
crucified our Lord. And the wind blew. And the wind
blew on some of those that crucified him. And God, the Holy Spirit,
took the things of Christ and applied it to some of those who
crucified him. And God delighted to do so. They
believed, they understood, and they seen the Lord Jesus Christ. But as many as received him,
To him he gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them
that believe on his name, which were born, not of blood, nor
of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. May the Lord bless you.