our big worldwide audience. There's three or four out there. I remember in the preacher's
class that Henry Mahan had when I was in Ashland, he was talking
to us men and he was talking about radio broadcasts and he
said, you know, don't He didn't use the word oversell, but the
point was is don't act like you're bigger than you are. He said
he knew one preacher just on a little old tiny radio station,
you know, and he'd come on and say, hello world. And it was,
he was lucky if the signal got out of town. But anyway, let's
ask God's blessing. Heavenly father, thank you for
the blessing of being alive, not only in the flesh, but in
the spirit. We thank you that by your grace
we are able to perceive and to enter the kingdom of God. We thank you that you didn't
leave us alone. Lord, we know what our end would
be if you left it up to us, but you have loved us with an everlasting
love. And therefore, you have drawn
us to yourself and bound us to yourself. And we thank you, Lord. Now bless
our study. May it prove to be an honor to
your name and a benefit to our souls. Amen. Now, we've been
Looking at the subject now for a few months on the fundamentals
of the grace of God. And we've spoken of the need
of his grace, which is our sinfulness. We've spoken of the source of
his grace, which is his will. We've spoken of the method of
his grace, which is the substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And now this is the third part
on the subject of the application of His grace, which is the Holy
Spirit's call. And we have noted that the grace
of God, which is fundamentally understood as God's favorable
disposition towards His people, the word grace means favor, yet
that grace must take action. Just God wishing us well will
accomplish nothing. He must do us well for that grace
to result in any benefit to us. And of course, the doing began
with his choosing of a people. He had chosen us in Christ before
the foundation of the world. And then his doing continued
in the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
still God doing. But this grace has to extend
even more than God doing things for us, he must also do things
to us and in us. If his grace and the purpose
of his grace is to be fulfilled, what is the purpose of his grace
toward us? What is the goal, shall we say, the end point of
grace? It's that we be conformed to
the image of Christ. Salvation is much more than simply
being spared the agonies of hell. I suppose I'd rather continue
forever like I am than to continue forever in hell, but I don't
want to continue forever like I am. Paul said, O wretched man that
I am, who will deliver me? There's deliverance yet to come. But this work of conforming us
to the image of his son, the predestined destiny of God's
people to be conformed to the image of his son begins with
what the Bible calls the new birth. Lord Jesus Christ called
it that. Born again. And its fullest explanation
is given in John chapter 3. And we've seen there that it
is an absolute necessity. Unless a man is born again, he
cannot perceive the kingdom of God. Unless a man is born again,
he can't enter the kingdom of God. It's something that at least
logically precedes any move toward God made by the sinner. Many
people believe that the new birth is the result of believing the
gospel. It's the other way around. Believing
the gospel is the result of being born again. So it's necessary, it must be
done. And as our Lord explains the
new birth to Nicodemus here in John chapter three, he indicates
that the new birth is a sovereign act of God. And by that we mean
it's something that God does according to his will without
the permission of the person to whom he does it. God doesn't need permission to
do anything. He's God after all. He certainly
has sufficient power to do whatever He wants. But it's more than
that when we speak of sovereignty. He has all authority to do whatever
He wants to do. And this results in Him doing
whatever He wants to do. But this sovereignty of the Spirit
and the new birth is illustrated by the wind. It says in verse
8 of John 3, the wind blows wherever it pleases. And that's true. We in the upper Midwest know
all about that. Who can stop the wind? Now, it's
true. We can get inside a house and shield ourself from it, but
we can't stop it, can we? It keeps on blowing. We put up a little bit of snow
fence this year. Well, one thing we found out,
all that a snow fence does is change where the snow falls.
The wind still blows it somewhere and piles it up. But the wind, and while we've
learned some of the science of the wind, we still can't do anything
to control it. Now, back in the days of our
Lord Jesus, people didn't even have any clue why the wind blew. They just knew that it did. And
so we got to look at this illustration with, shall we say, whatever
level of scientific mind they had in that day. And it would have been, well,
the wind blows, and we don't know about it until it shows
up. We can't predict it. We can't stop it. And we may
be able to discern its direction before all we know it'll change
direction somewhere down the road. In other words, man is
not in control of the wind and man is not in control of the
spirit of God when it comes to this business of the new birth. The word translated spirit in
the Greek New Testament is also the one translated wind or breath. And so The Holy Spirit was making
a play on words. Of course, the same word in Hebrew
can be translated wind, breath, or spirit. And so that's why wind is used
here by our Lord Jesus as an illustration of the working of
the Spirit. So if a man is born again, it
means he's born of God, according to God's will, by God's power. An illustration of the new birth
is given to us in the book of Ezekiel, chapter 37, the story
of the dry bones. And God said to Ezekiel, son
of man, can these bones live? Dry bones, disconnected. And Ezekiel gave a good answer.
He says, Lord, you know. And the Lord was the only one
that did know. And the Lord was the only thing that did about
it. He said, all right, Ezekiel, you prophesy to the bones. Hear
the word of the Lord. And so Ezekiel did. And there
was a rattling of the bones. And the bones began to connect
joint to joint like they're supposed to. And there was ligaments and
muscles and all that added. And there they were, not just
bones anymore, a pile of completed bodies. But you know what? For all of
that, they were still dead. And that's a good illustration
of what we, as preachers and testifiers of the things of God,
of the gospel of Christ, all we can do, we can say, hear the
word of the Lord, and we preach it. And it may come upon dead
bones, and it might straighten those bones out, it might put
them together right, It might give them the appearance of being
alive. We train people, that's all we
can do. We train them in truth. And they can recite the truth
back to us just like a parrot can recite words back to you. And sometimes people will even
make professions of faith and say, yeah, I believe that. But
I know this. I can't remember which one of
the old preachers it was, but he said this, if my voice is
the only voice you hear, you are without hope, because my
voice has no life in it. But when those bones got put
back together in the right order and muscle and flesh and all
that added to it, then the Lord said, prophesy to the wind or
the spirit. And Ezekiel said, and I prophesied
to the wind and I said, oh, blow upon these dead that they may
live. And the spirit of God, the wind
of God, the breath of God blew upon those dead corpses and they
came alive and stood up a mighty army. Now that's, that's the
new birth. That's the new, pictured there
is the new birth of every one of the chosen redeemed people
of God, just all packed together in one instant. But this business
of the new birth has been going on ever since Adam and Eve sinned. There's never been anybody that
believed God that was not born again. When our Lord Jesus Christ
spoke here of the new birth, he was not introducing something
new that God was doing. He was showing what God has always
been doing, giving life to his people. Now, this grace of God
that gives spiritual life is not useless. It's not powerless. You know, Paul, in speaking of
the grace of God given to him, in order that he might preach
the unsearchable riches of Christ to the Gentiles. And he says,
and this grace to me was not without effect. Double negatives
kind of throw us off sometimes. But what he was saying is the
grace of God was not powerless. It accomplished something. And
the grace of God always does. The grace of God always has an
effect. And it has the effect that God
intends it to. So this grace that is given to
us by means of the new birth has an effect on us. It changes
us. This is not just a transformation. You know, if you take a piece
of clay and it's just a blob of clay there, you say, okay,
yeah. Well, you can transform it. You can take it and change
it into a different form. You can make it to where it no
longer looks like just a lump of clay. You can turn it into
a beautiful vase or something like that. But all you've done
is change this form. You haven't changed what it actually
is. It's still just clay, isn't it? But the grace of God, it does
not simply take those dead in trespasses and sin and moralize
them and make them religious. It actually changes something
within them, and that change within them begins to produce
fruit. Now, Paul describes the fruit
of the Spirit in Galatians chapter five. And it would be suitable
to say that the evidence of the new birth would be the presence
of the fruit of the Spirit. The problem is not everybody
knows exactly how to interpret what Paul means when he says
the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness,
kindness, meekness, and a few other things. And what they do, if they're
trying to use that as the standard by which to judge themselves
or others, they start looking for the perfection of it. Well,
there's none of us perfect in love. None of us perfect in joy. None of us, we have perfect peace
with God, but we don't experience perfect peace with him. At least
most of us don't. We're still troubled about things.
Now, I'll say this. While we're not perfect in love,
there's love. While we're not perfect in joy,
there is joy. So that's why we wouldn't want
to go to the fruit of the spirit and try to examine ourselves
according to that to determine whether or not we've been born
of God. There are simpler things by which the new birth is evidenced. First of all, everyone born of
God perceives and enters the kingdom of God. Now let's just
say as a loose definition of the kingdom of God, kingdom of
God consists of the way God does things. Now the world of religion
is in opposition to that kingdom. The world of religion is based
on works. The world of human religion is all about impressing
God with how I act so that in return he'll give me what I'm
looking for. Now every religion in the world,
except the gospel of Christ, operates on that system. And it doesn't matter what else
a person may say, if at the core of their message, it is about
what we do, then it is not. The message of
the scriptures is not the message of God. It is not the gospel. And those who follow in that
have not been born again, because if they were born again, they
would perceive that kingdom of grace, and they would enter that
kingdom entirely upon the grace of God. Now, Nicodemus, He was
a teacher in Israel, but he had never perceived or entered the
kingdom of God. What's the proof of it? Well,
when the Lord said a person must be born again, Nicodemus scratched
his head and said, well, how can a man be born when he is
old? Proved right away, misunderstood what the Lord was saying, that
the Lord's talking about a spiritual kingdom, not a kingdom of this
world. Now, I'm not gonna sit here and
point a finger at Nicodemus like I just happened to be smarter
than him. No, eventually Nicodemus was born again and he perceived
and entered the kingdom of God. And I have perceived and entered
the kingdom of God. And you all profess the same.
But why is that? Because the spirit of God came
upon us like the wind. We didn't know it was coming.
We couldn't stop it from coming. And it breathed life into us. All right, and in John 1, verse
12, here's another evidence of someone being born of God. John
1, verse 12. Yet, to all who received him, now, When our Lord came, not
many did. There were a lot who followed
Him around. But most of those who were following Him around
were just impressed with the miracles He was doing. And they
kind of liked it when He'd give the Pharisees what for. You know,
because the Pharisees persecuted them. It's kind of nice to see
the Lord turn around and call the Pharisees what everybody
really knew they were, hypocrites, phonies. But that isn't the same thing
as receiving Christ. To receive Him is to receive
Him for who He is, God, manifest in the flesh, the Word made flesh,
to receive Him as Christ, as Messiah. as the Savior, as the
Lord. The word receive here doesn't
simply mean receive as you would receive a gift. It implies the
concept of welcome as when you receive guests into your home. That's the sense of it. Now,
he said, as many as did receive him, to them he gave the power,
the authority, to become children of God. Children, like here, born. Now, when the Bible talks about
us being adopted, it's not talking about adoption the way we normally
think of it, is a child is born and for whatever reason The parents
give him up for adoption, or maybe later the child is orphaned,
he doesn't have any parents, and he is simply made part of
another family. That's how we perceive adoption.
But in the scriptures, adoption carries certain legal aspects
with it, and that's what Paul's talking about, and he's the one
that's always talking about adoption. It means to obtain the rights
of a son. rather than the responsibilities
of a slave. So our entry into the family
of God has both legal aspects, but here it's not talking about
the legal aspects, it's talking about actually being born of
God, being born again by a work of God and having within us the
life of God. Now, they were not born by natural
descent. That is, the person's not born
again because their parents were. Someone once said, God has many
children but no grandchildren. You cannot give birth to those
that are spiritually alive. We don't have that power. Nor of a human decision. Now, those who would promote
The doctrine of free will says that the new birth comes by human
decision. I tell God I want to be born
again. No, it's not a human decision. It's at or of a husband's will.
And a husband, you know, we always think of that in terms of marriage,
but the word husband actually means caretaker. So nobody in
this world, however much they may care about your soul, They
can't make you born again. So they are born of God. So they receive, they welcome
the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who do not welcome him,
I'm not talking about those, and I know I'm always speaking
from a background of the freewillism I was raised in, But you know,
they would present salvation as simply escape from hell. And
Jesus is kind of the pill you got to take. And you know, if
the doctor gives you a bitter pill, you'll take it. You don't
like the pill, but you'll take it because it'll do for you what
you want. And so you don't, well, there would be people that would
go to the front and make their profession of faith. And they
thought they were doing something honorable and wise because they
were willing to take Jesus Christ as their savior, my friends.
If you don't welcome the Lord and receive him with gladness
of heart, you've not been born again. It's a miraculous thing God does.
He comes to all those dead and trespasses them dead in heart.
And he doesn't do as those people who misuse Revelation 3, I think
it's verse 20. Behold, I stand at the door and
knock. They act like Jesus goes to everybody's heart. Can I come
in? Will you let me in? That's not
how it works. If that's all that Christ does, the door's going
to stay shut. Christ comes to the human heart,
and the door is locked, and it's bolted, and they got a bar across
the inside of it. They've done everything they
can to shut him out. And using his cross as though
it were a hammer, he beats it down. All the time we're saying,
no, don't come in here. This is my heart, I rule here.
I'm the king, leave me alone. But the moment he knocks down
the door, we say, thank you, thank you, thank you. Come on in. But we're not willing for him
to come in until he does. And we receive him with all gladness
of heart. They come to Christ. They receive
him as he came to them. They come to Christ. It says
that all, in John 6, 44, all that has heard and has learned from the Father
comes to me." That's what the Lord Jesus said. If the Father, by His Spirit, has spoken to
you, and you've learned from Him, you've come to Christ. If a person does not come to
Christ, it doesn't matter what else they may have done, they
have not been born again. They believe the testimony of
God. 1 John chapter 5. Now these are
the evidences, and let me say this, these are evidences that
you and I can't perceive in someone else. We can scarcely sometimes
perceive them in ourselves. But they are there if you've
been born again. 1 John 5, verse 10. Anyone who believes in the Son
of God has this testimony in his heart. That's the testimony
of God. Anyone who does not believe God
has made him out to be a liar because he has not believed the
testimony God has given about his Son. And this is the testimony. God has given us eternal life. This life is in his Son. He who
has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son
of God does not have life. Now, everyone who's got life,
he's got it by means of the Son. And he believed that testimony
from God. This is what God says about his son. You know, if you
go out into the world and say that, you know, that the religion
of Christ is the only way to God, people get all huffy. Well,
now the Jews, oh, I'm sorry, the Jew that rejects Christ has
no love or understanding of the Father either. They just don't. It won't matter how devoted they
are. Apart from Christ, the most devout
Jew is as lost as the most wicked pagan you could ever think of. Those who try to come to God
through their church, through their ceremonies, through anything
other than Christ, they have not been born of God. The life
is in his son. Now, if you've got the son, you've
got the life. If you don't have the son, doesn't
matter what else you have, you don't have life. They love God and they love his
people. Once again, 1 John chapter three. I plan to preach on the love
of God in the morning message and a lot of repetition here,
so. If you don't catch it in Sunday
school this morning, a lot of this is going to be said again. First John 3.14. We know that we have passed from
death to life because we love our brothers. Anyone who does
not love remains in death. Now, understand what's meant
by love here. It doesn't mean you like them.
Not all of God's people are likable. And I imagine that all of God's
people are unlikable to at least some other of God's people. But
the love that God has shown to us as undeserving sinners is
reflected by us in the love that we bear to the brethren in spite
of what they are. I do find it amazing to think that for 33 years now,
over 33 years, this church has loved me because I've given plenty
of reasons for them not to. All of us do that, don't we?
We act in ways that if it were not for the Spirit of God and
the life that He's given us, we would separate ourselves from
our brethren, we would look down on them, we wouldn't love them. But God's people love the rest
of God's people, and they love God. We love Him because He first
loved us. Now here's one that'll started
a little late so I'm going a little bit late, but we're about done
here. He does not continue to sin. I John 3 verse 9, no one
who is born of God will continue to sin because God's seed remains
in him. He cannot go on sinning because
he has been born of God. Now, that To us people who believe in grace,
we say, well, wait a minute. We're sinners and we keep right
on sinning. In fact, John said that himself.
He said, if any man says, I have not sinned or I don't sin, he's
deceiving himself. He's calling God a liar. What
does John mean there? Well, John is dealing with spiritual
things. not those things done in the
flesh. It's someone who's been born
of God. And right now, I, you know, everyone here that's a
believer, I could say you have been born of God, but really
the whole you hasn't been born of God yet. Just that spiritual
nature of you has been born of God and it does not sin. Now, there's only one way that
the spirit can sin. That's unbelief. All other sin, transgression
is merely fleshly things. And when I say unbelief, all
that goes with faith to not have, that involves the love of God
and these other things, but faith. Paul said, not Paul, but whoever
wrote Hebrews, be careful that there is not in you an evil heart
of unbelief. Now, an unbelieving heart will
produce all kinds of outward sin manifested in the flesh,
but unbelief is what lies at the root of it. That's the essential
spiritual sin, and the one who's been born of God is never again
guilty of that. They say, but I've got doubts,
and there's times I've I just can't even see that I believe
God. That's another fleshly thing. Remember, your brain's part of
your flesh. It's messed up just like everything else about your
flesh is. And your consciousness, as near as we can tell, what
we experience as consciousness in this life is mediated through
that organ called the brain. And if it's not working right,
the consciousness how we feel, our emotions, what we're thinking,
all that. It just doesn't operate right no matter what's put into
it. But that spiritual part of a born-again person always and
forever believes God. That's why it doesn't matter
how far or how many times a person falls. If he's been born again,
he gets up because his spirit will not sit still. unbelief. And then the last one,
how do you know? What's the evidence of being
born again? They're born again unto a living hope by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ through the preaching of the gospel. Now, it's a mystery, this born
again stuff, The Holy Spirit does it according to his own
will, when he will, and all of that. And yet, at least in general,
it's always occasioned by the preaching of the gospel. He has begotten us through the
word of truth. Now, if you haven't heard truth,
you haven't been begotten of God. And if the experience that
you call the new birth was simply you getting more dedicated or
having a feeling that someone was able to manipulate you into
by telling stories and kind of being religious. That's not new
birth. The bare preaching of the gospel
of Jesus Christ is the means by which God, by His Holy Spirit,
brings the new birth to His people. What is it? that caused you to
believe. Was it the truth or just something
else? Well, that brings us to the conclusion
of today's lesson. We'll see you in a few minutes.