It's good to see you guys. Wonderful
indeed. Boy, he about got me winded on
that last one. Yeah, I did a couple times I
had to swallow. Let me turn this thing on. Our title this morning, I'm turning
first of all to John chapter 3. So if you will meet me there,
John chapter 3. Reading verses 1 through 21. John chapter 3. My title this morning is simply,
Born of God. Born of God. Everybody that God
saves is born again. Born a second time. Born spiritually. Spiritual birth. Alright, let's
begin in chapter 3 of John with this first verse. And before we begin to read,
may we pray. Lord, thank you for letting us
gather in this place today. Thank you for these that you
have brought. But if we're the only ones that
are here, nothing will take place of any
value. Lord, unless you come and speak
to our poor souls the words of life, namely the words of Christ and
him crucified. Then our hearts are blessed,
but not until then. As we turn now to read your holy
word, Lord, I pray that you would give
us grace and mercy to do so. that we read what our Bibles
really teach us, and not some thought that we
have gathered somewhere else, but what we find written in this
book. Lord, come into our midst, we
pray. We do not deserve your presence. We beg it entirely on the merit
and blood of our Savior, the Lord Jesus. Help us, we pray,
for Christ's sake. Amen. Verse 1, John chapter 3. There was a man of the Pharisees
named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. That is, a member of the
Jewish Sanhedrin. The same came to Jesus by night. It seems to me that he would
not dare to have made this visit in the daytime. Some of his fellow
Sanhedrins might have found out about it. And he might no longer
be in that body, which he eventually was expelled anyway. A ruler of the Jews. The same
came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that
you are a teacher come from God. For no man can do these miracles
that you do except God be with him. And it's a lot bigger than God
be with him. God is him. Christ is God. For no man can
do these miracles which you do, except God be with him. Jesus
answered and said unto him, Now here's where the subject of the
new birth is addressed to Nicodemus. Jesus answered and said unto
him, Verily, verily, Or, amen, amen, I say unto you, except
a man be born again, that is a second time, a spiritual birth,
except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. It is invisible to him without
the new birth. Verse 4, Nicodemus said unto
him, now here is this brilliant man who has no clue as to being born
again. Nicodemus said to the Lord Jesus,
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 you, except a man be born of water and of
the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.'" This man
was noted as a teacher among the Israelites. But if he's never
entered God's kingdom, he ain't fit to teach a dog, let alone
lost sinners. 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 say unto you,
you must be born again. The wind blows where it will,
and you hear the sound thereof, but you cannot tell from where
it comes or where it goes. So is everyone that is born of
the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto
him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto
him, Are you a master, that is, a master teacher of Israel? and
know not these things? Amen, amen, I say unto you, we
speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen, and you receive
not our witness. If I have told you earthly things
and you believe not, how shall you believe if I tell you of
heavenly things? And no man has ascended up to
heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of
Man which is in heaven." Now, do you catch on to what
he said? The Lord Jesus is telling him, I'm in heaven, and he says,
I'm on earth, and I'm in both places at the same time. This
is nothing less than God being present everywhere. And in order
for Christ to make this statement about himself, he is declaring
himself to be God. God in heaven and God on earth.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up. that whosoever believes in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes
in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Now listen. Believing Christ is the result
of being born again. It is not the cause. You understand? You cannot come to Christ until
God, by a miracle of his grace, raises us from the dead spiritually. We have to declare all the accomplishments
we've had over the years in regular religion to be nothing but garbage. Not worth a hill of beans. Wasted all our time and talents
and money and all this other stuff. And it's just down the
toilet. What verse was on? Oh, I'm looking on the wrong
page. Let's see here. Yeah, here we go. We finish verse 16, for God sent
not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the
world through Him might be saved. Now God is under no delusion
about saving all the sons and daughters of Adam's race. You
and I don't know who His people are, who Christ's sheep are,
who His bride is, We don't know these things, but we know how
to find them out. You preach Christ and Him crucified,
and the sheep will come to Christ, and the goats will take exception
with what you say. God sent not His Son into the
world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might
be saved. A whole world of sinners. but
not talking about all the people that live or have lived on the
face of this earth. He that believes on Him, he that
believes on Christ is not condemned, but he that believes not is condemned
already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten
Son of God. And this is the condemnation. That light has come into the
world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their
deeds were evil. So is everyone that does evil. For everyone that does evil hates
the light, neither comes to the light, lest his deeds should
be reproved." Now, we're not talking about these lights. We're
talking about the light of the world, the Lord Jesus. Verse 21, But he that does truth,
he that doeth truth, comes to the light that his deeds may
be made manifest, that they are wrought or worked in God." What
a wonderful, wonderful statement indeed. Now, I need you to do
a little shifting if you don't mind. While we're right here
in John, I want you to put a marker at the first chapter of John,
the beginning of John's Gospel. And when you've accomplished
that difficult feat, I want you to turn to Romans chapter 9. And here I should like to read
verses 1 through 24. We may have to speed up a little
bit, but maybe we'll make it. Romans
9. 1 through 24. I say the truth in Christ, I
lie not. My conscience also bearing me
witness in the Holy Ghost, or the Holy Spirit, that I have
great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart." This is
Paul referring to himself. For I could wish, he didn't say
that he did, but he said, I could. For I could wish that myself
were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according
to the flesh, namely the Jews, who are Israelites, to whom pertains
the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving
of the law, and the service of God, and the prophets, the promises,
whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh,
Christ came, Christ who is over all God, God over all, blessed
forever. Amen. Verse 6. Not as though
the word of God is taken none effect, for they are not all
Israel which are of Israel." Now, the Bible does promise us
that in glory, the Lord Jesus shall have a people from every
tribe, tongue, and kindred on the face of this earth. Now,
let's look at this verse in the light of that. Who are Israelites? Let me jump a verse, verse 5. Whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the
flesh, Christ came, who is over all God, blessed forever. Now here's my verse 6. Not as
though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not
all Israel. All Israelites are not sheep
of Christ. Let's read this again. Starting
in the middle of verse 6. For they are not all Israel,
which are of Israel. Let's bring that forward to where
we are here in America. Let's read it like this, for
they're not all Americans. I'm talking about the Americans
that God saves. This county in which we live
is predominantly unbelievers. I don't care what their religious
persuasion. They don't know the God of the
Bible. They don't know the Christ of this Bible. They're not all
Americans, which are of America. You understand that now? That's
pretty simple. Verse 7, neither because they're
the seed of Abraham. And if you're familiar with John's
gospel, the Lord Jesus ran into numerous persons in that one
gospel alone, and they took refuge in the fact that they're descendants
of Abraham. and thought that would somehow
make up for everything and God would receive them with open
arms. Neither because they are seed of Abraham are they all
children. Abraham had a lot of children,
but only one by promise. But in Isaac shall your seed
be called. Paul labors this point in the
book of Galatians. You should be familiar with that.
We've covered it many times. Alright, verse 8. This is explaining verse 7 and
6. That is, they which are the children
of the flesh. These are not the children of
God, but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. For this is the word of promise. At this time I will come, and
Sarah shall have a son." Oh, now there's Abraham's son. And
he's also called Abraham's seed. And not only this, but when Rebekah
also had conceived by one, even by her father Isaac, for the
children, being not yet born, neither having done any good
or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might
stand, and here's the rule, not of works, but of him that calls. It was said unto her, she had
twins, the one that was born first, She says, the elder, by
just a few minutes or however long between the twins coming
from her womb, I have no idea how long. What verse am I on? Oh, the elder
shall serve. I'm looking too far ahead. It
was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger, as it
is written, Jacob have I loved." Now you know the rest of that
sentence ain't supposed to be in this book, don't you? Don't
you know that? You're born believing that, but
it ain't so. It's supposed to be here. It's
here because God put it here. And ain't nothing hard for Him
to do. He can take jackasses and write this Bible, but he
chose not to do so. Jacob have I loved, but Esau
have I hated. Now if you want to argue, just
keep on grinding your teeth and you won't have any after a while.
I'm telling you, this is the gospel message. And Paul is pretty astute when
you pick up what he says immediately following that beginning at verse
14. He says, what are we going to
say about this? I don't like it. By nature, we don't. We think God should save us on
our merits. The only problem with that is
we ain't got none. And I know that's good English,
no matter where you come from. I could dress it up, but I don't
think I should. What shall we say then? Is there
unrighteousness with God? For he said to Moses, I will have mercy and I'll have
compassion on what people? On whom I will
have compassion. So then it is not of him that
wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy."
Sounds like God's doing everything to me. For the Scripture says
unto Pharaoh, even for this same purpose, have I raised you up that I might
show my power in you, and that my name might be declared throughout
all the earth. Therefore, here it is again,
has God mercy on whom? He will have mercy And whom he
will, he hardens. You will say then unto me, why
does God still find fault? For who has resisted his will?
And the answer to that is nobody can resist his will. Nay, but O man, who are you that
replies against God? Shall the thing formed say to
him that formed it, Why have you made me thus? Hath not the potter power over
the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and
another unto dishonor? What if God willing to show his
wrath, and make his power known, endures with much longsuffering
the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, that he might make
known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which
he had before prepared unto glory. Even us, Paul speaking of himself
and the Roman believers, even us whom he has called, not of
the Jews only, Thank God, but also of the Gentiles. Alright, we go back now to chapter
1 in John. What is our subject this morning?
having to do with the new birth, being born of God spiritually. So here in chapter 1 of the Gospel
of John, we have a definitive statement in regard to this matter. In verse 13 of John chapter 1,
here the new birth is described Which were born. It is a birth. Bringing into being what had
no being. A birth. Which were born. Not of blood. It has nothing
to do with my ancestry or yours. has nothing to do with who our
parents are, our grandparents, or whomever you wish to include
in the family portrait. Not of blood. It doesn't come
by blood. We cannot give our children the
new birth. We can't even give ourselves
the new birth. not of blood, nor of the will
of the flesh. The natural man outside of Christ
has no will to come to God in Christ alone, to whom belongs
all the glory. So it's not of the will of the
flesh. nor of the will of man. It's
not someone else willing me into salvation. Now, I know religion practices
a lot of things that certainly tells you that they don't believe
what this says. When they have revival meeting,
they'll do everything in this world to try to get people to
come. They drag you down the aisle, bring you to what they
call, this ain't even an altar, but they sure call it one. I
bet there's never been a blood sacrifice on what I'm standing.
This is a pulpit. It's simply elevated so I can
see all of you, you know, when I look out there. Not of blood. Not of the will
of the flesh. Not of the will of man. I don't
care who the preacher is. He doesn't cut any ice with God. God saves whom He pleases. And
the preacher's got no idea who that's going to be and who it
isn't going to be. Therefore, being born again,
See the three words that finish up verse 13, John chapter 1,
but of God. Born of God. It's ever been that way. It is
that way now and it shall forever be this way. Alright, let's see if we can
make some progress now in regard to some things that we need to
take a look at. First of all, the necessity of
the new birth. If you just reflect a moment
on Nicodemus and his conversation with Christ, it is pretty plain
that our Lord did not give Nicodemus something to do, He didn't even
give him something to believe. He said simply, you must be born
again. And the man has no faculty to
understand divine things because he wants to know if you can enter
your mother's womb and be born a second time. No, you'd be born
a sinner both times if you could. So nothing would be different. Let me read you a statement that
we read. I'm not going to turn to it, so I don't think you can
beat me there, but if you want to, Romans 9, 23. It reads, "...and changed the
glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible
man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things." Surely, surely, Wonder, this
miracle of the new birth can be accomplished by none but the
triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now the question
is, are we born again? Am I born again? Are you? You either are or you
aren't. I either am or I'm not. The power by which the new birth
is accomplished. Surely we cannot forget those
things in John 1.13 that we just covered explicitly. This has
everything to do with this. Born not of blood, that is, not
of Adam. Adam is the first man, and Christ
is said to be in 1 Corinthians 15, the second man from heaven. Nor of the will of the flesh. And in Romans 9 again, verse
26, And it shall come to pass that the place where it was said
unto them, You are not my people, There shall they be called the
children of the living God. Now let me see if I can explain
one little thing. It's like God is saying to all
these bright-minded people that think they know everything, more
than God for sure. He just sort of rubs their nose
in it. He specializes in saving people
that religion says can't be saved. Now get this, he saves the chief
of sinners. If you don't believe it, ask
the apostle Paul. That old boy was dead set against
the gospel, against Christ, against the whole religion of God and
of Christ and the Holy Spirit. And our Lord conquered him as if it took nothing. put him in
the dust, made him cry uncle. Nor of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man, but born of God, of God. Let me read you a couple of verses.
2 Corinthians 5.17 says, Therefore,
if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. He is a newborn
person, spiritually. He's a new creature. Old things
are passed away. Behold, all things are become
new. Then it tells us in verse 17
of 2 Corinthians 5, this goes on to say, this statement now, tells us something of the difficulty of making sons and daughters
of Adam, to making them sons of God and of Christ and of the
Holy Spirit. So our Lord, you can write this
down. I don't think we'll have time
to do the turning, but if you'll write this down, I challenge
you to do this and look at this very carefully, because I know
it doesn't sit too well with some people. I tried it out at
a dinner table in a certain place one time, and when I got through
describing it, the pastor's wife said, absolutely not. Not me. She claimed to be a believer,
but she ain't never been this bad. Shoot, you might as well
turn to it. I can't put it all into words.
2 Corinthians. I'm sorry, I'm turning you the
wrong way. Luke chapter 11. There we go. Luke chapter 11. And verses 20
through 22. Luke 11, verse 20. Now, the Lord
Jesus has been dealing with some of these hard-headed Jews that
dogged His every step and followed Him everywhere He went, trying
to find Him, making a mistake. Or they'd find one and find out
in short order that they're the ones that made the mistake and
not Him. But here it's pretty clear. Our
Lord is casting out devils. Demons. Call it whatever you
will, it's one and the same thing. The devil himself is a demon,
and demons are devils. Verse 20, our Lord has described
in the preceding verses, He said, But if I, with the finger of
God, cast out devils, No doubt the kingdom of God has come upon
you. Now here's what that spells. If you're born again, if you're
a believer, the Lord Jesus had to cast the
devil out of you and me. And if you claim you ain't never
been devil-possessed, you still are. And so am I. If I with the finger of God cast
out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you. And one of the reasons that people
revolt at this, the minute you talk about being demon possessed,
they think about killing people, robbing banks, and doing all
this kind of stuff. I almost used a bad word. What
people do in church this morning who are not worshiping the God
whom we are preaching, that, my friend, is the greatest sin
for which you and I can be held accountable. Luke 11, when a strong man armed
keeps his palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger
than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his
armor, wherein he trusted, and divides his spoils. Here it is. He that is not with me is against
me. You cannot be neutral. There
is no such thing. You either love Him or you hate
Him. The same is true of me. He that is not with me is against
me. And he that gathers not with
me scatters. Boy, I tell you, there's no room
to get out none of that. These statements are so plain
and so clear. It is amazing. Truly amazing. Born of God. Now then, I'm going to, this is dangerous I understand,
but I'm going to count on your memory. I'd rather count on yours
than mine. Do you remember what book in our
Bibles The conversion, the new birth of Saul of Tarsus is in
the book of Acts. You remember the chapter. It's
not far from the stoning of Stephen. It's in Acts chapter 9. Acts
chapter 9. And there are three words that the Lord uses to settle the nerves of Ananias,
who is a resident of Damascus where Saul is headed, and he's
headed there to arrest people who profess Christ and who are
followers of him. The Lord has instructed Ananias to go rescue this man who cannot
now see. He lost his sight in that encounter
with Christ. So he comes to Damascus, and
Ananias says, Lord, we know exactly why this man is coming to our
city. He's coming to arrest us and take us back to Jerusalem.
And if he can, He'll also kill us there. And God uses three
words to calm his fears. You remember what they were?
The first word is behold. Behold. He prays. Now Pharisees were noted for
praying. And if you give a crowd of people,
they could pray right on and on and on. But this is the first time this
man has ever really prayed. Behold, he prays. And with some
reluctance, I'm sure, Ananias went. to where Saul is, and then
at a later date, his name was changed to Paul. So, this is
wonderful, wonderful indeed. If any man be in Christ, try to picture this as to what
we've looked at about the new birth. This is 2 Corinthians
5.17. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he is a new creation, a new creature. He's not the same person. Now,
sad to say, when believers are brought to trust in Christ, we
still got that other nature that we were born with. And there's
a war going on in us until our dying day. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. Here's one of the first things
you're going to notice. See if you can remember, those
of you that are born again. We look at ourselves different
from what we used to. We just used to think that, you
know, we were pretty much better than anybody else we know. Ah, we put ourselves in the dust. We give all the glory to God. We have new desires concerning
the Lord Jesus and his salvation. And we know for sure that our
views of God have gone from being poor and sorry
and no good to being the glorious God of heaven and earth. This
God who makes all things, who rules all things. This God who
is coming again. And, thank God for this, there
is also given to those people whom God saves a new appetite. I've had a new appetite now for,
well, in a few months here, it will be a year, won't it? Huh? And that kind ain't much fun. But this is. Can you figure out what it is?
All we want to hear is Christ, Christ, and more Christ. And if we don't hear it, we're
going someplace where we can. May the Lord help us.