on three, and we look at verses
one through nine. We can go to just about any store
in this country, and we can get mad over what section it's in,
how it's labeled on the tag, but you can purchase and have
in your possession, in your home, the Word of God. What a thought. Every one of us has it in our
laps this We have the Word of God. I can stand up here and
I can read to you the Word of God. I can do my best to expound
and preach the Word of God and comparing Scripture with Scripture.
But if the Spirit doesn't bless it, if the Spirit doesn't come,
if that wind doesn't move on these dry bones, we might stand
up. We may have sinew. We may have
muscles on our bones. But if the Lord isn't pleased
to breathe on us, That's CPR. I got scribbled down there in
Ezekiel 37. That's life. He said, I will breathe into
you. If he doesn't breathe into us,
ain't gonna do anybody any good. So we petitioned him knowing.
He told Ezekiel, he said, you pray. Pray the Spirit. He'll
come to you. And I will. That's something. There's one thing needful we
have. We need Christ. We need to be
born again. Made like Him. Have His incorruptible
seed put in us. There are so many things throughout
my life I thought was needful. I've got taxes to pay. That's
pretty important, isn't it? There are a lot of things that
are important. I've got to work. I've got deadlines
to meet. I've got to get up early. I've
got to do this tomorrow. I've got to take a trash out. A whole bunch of
things I need to do. And they have their purpose.
The Lord uses all of those things. But they were not the one thing
needful. The one thing needful is to know the Lord Jesus Christ.
And for you to know Him, for you to be made one with our Lord,
have life, to dwell with Him, and for Him to dwell in you,
you must be born again. It says there in John 3 verse 1,
there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the
Jews. Nicodemus, I looked his name
up. Some dictionaries say innocent blood is his name. I thought his parents must have
thought high of him when he was named, wouldn't they? But in
the Greek it means public triumph. Public triumph. How fitting. In his natural birth, in his
natural state, all of his victory, all of his triumph was only public. only outwardly. That's every
one of us. The Lord is speaking to Nicodemus. I pray he'll speak
to us tonight. He was a Pharisee. Those Pharisees, that was the
religious elite. They prided themselves on how
righteous they were before men. How righteous they were before
the law. How righteous they were before God. In one Bible dictionary
it says they encouraged all to be self-sufficient. You can do
it yourself. Look at me. What a shame. Hawker said it also meant they
were so proud of how they knew their own heart. Oh, I know some things. We'll
see what Nicodemus knew. Our heart's deceitful, isn't
it? Who can know it? God knows it. Lord, you know. You know. But they didn't know
God. They knew a whole lot. A whole
lot of stuff, but they didn't know God. They preached out of
the Old Testament. They were rulers. Teachers. Preachers. The Christ the Preacher is talking
to a preacher. A poor preacher, but a preacher.
They didn't know God. Nothing's changed in our day,
has it? Millions of people stand up and say they're speaking on
behalf of God. That's a frightening thing. That's
something to take light heartedly. It's all around this nation,
all around this city, all around the world. People stand up with
a suit and tie and a Bible and say, I'm going to read some words,
and they do. But it's not knowing God. It's not in truth, is it?
We saw last week, men and women, they do what they think's right.
Well, that seems good to me. It's what grandma and grandpa
did. That's what I'll do. They were fine people. We all
come into this world, we're standing on our good decision-making,
our morality. We all come into this world trusting
our heritage. I'm a Baptist. I'm a Southern
Baptist. I'm a Pentecostal. I'm a this,
I'm a that, whatever. Trusting in those things. Our promises
and our pledges to God. I gave myself to God. I made
Him Lord. He beat you to it. Our promises. That's what we
stand on. Not His promises. Man don't know. Our benefits
and our success in this world. The Lord must be blessing it.
I'm still alive, ain't I? Still eating. And the Lord doesn't
commit Himself to those. That's what we looked at last
Wednesday. He turns them away. The final thing of that was religious
knowledge. All the things we know. Here
we see Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews. He was one
of the Sanhedrin, one of the 70. And someone didn't, they
didn't just take turns being Sanhedrin. That wasn't his pick
that week. Well, that was some rigorous selection, rigorous
training. There's two big teachers there in Jerusalem. Gamiel, I always think of Gargamel,
like Smurfs. I don't know why, since I was
a little kid, but probably better off it was Gargamel. And Samuel,
this one was under the other one, but he was trained and schooled
and taught and he was in a position of authority. He taught the Old
Testament. Everybody sat down and it was
quiet. He spoke. And he did all the standing and judgment. He
did the accusing and excusing. You shouldn't be doing that.
You better knock that off. Here's what you ought to be doing.
Or, no, that's fine. Leave that one alone. He was
in the seat of judgment. Mankind, right now, turn your
news on. is an open warfare condemning
anything they can. I don't like what you said nine
years ago, let's cancel them. Get rid of them. That's a seat of judgment, isn't
it? It's always been the same. Ain't nothing changed. We just,
we see more of it now and we can do it quicker. Instead of
having to write out an old quill pen or something, we can just
hit a button. And we do it with less repercussions,
and it seems to just keep escalating. It says in verse 1, there was
a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. And he came, the same came to
Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, Master, Teacher,
we know We know that thou art a teacher come from God, for
no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be
with him." We know why he came by night, don't we? If he'd have
come by daytime, his friends would have seen him, those fellow
rulers in the temple, and his religion might see him. Can't
do that. He may lose his standing in the
church. There's people I know that claim
to believe the Lord, claim to love Christ, and they say, I'm
going to a place, and I know they don't preach the gospel. One of two things is a lie. Believe
the Lord and love Him. You can't stand to hear nothing
else. I wouldn't let anybody lie on my God. I wouldn't let you
talk bad about my wife. I sure ain't gonna sit there
and let somebody talk bad about the Lord. Or in ignorance. But you gotta
keep up appearances, don't you? Can't let that go. Can't let
positions of authority go. Can't let upward mobility go
away. They may promote me. They came to him by night, and
then he said, we know. We know. We know. It's hard to
find somebody that doesn't know. People will find out I'm a preacher,
and immediately they speak to me about their faith. I have
strong faith. I didn't ask them about your
faith. And then they tell me everything they know. Oh, I know
God. I know what I believe. It's never
who. I know my Bible. This man came
to the Almighty God in human flesh and told Him, I know. I know God. I know who comes from
God. I know who does the works of
God. And I know who God dwells with. I've got all this sorted
out. Doesn't that just scream wrong
to you? Wouldn't a child see that? That ain't right. That
ain't right. Isn't that a sad situation? I wish I could find somebody
that didn't already know. Someone that wanted to cry out,
Lord thou knowest. Thou knowest. Nicodemus came
by night. It may have been by night, but
he came, didn't he? Now this is a couple of messages. I remember
my pastor preaching on this. He said, boy, that's good. I'll
take anybody. You come to Lord, because there's no time frame.
Well, we have to come to him on Wednesday nights. We've got
to come to him on Sunday mornings and Sunday. No, you come to him
in the middle of the night. You come to him on Tuesday. Whenever
it's laid on your heart, run to Him. Run with urgency. Run
to the Lord. Come to Him. Come how you are,
like that man in the tombs. He saw the Lord. He was naked
and out of his mind. And ran to Him. Worshipped Him.
Fell on His feet. Fell on His face. You come to
the Lord. And then I heard my pastor many years later say,
Boy, how he came was wrong. And you know what? Both ways
are right. That's correct both ways. You come to Him anytime
you can, but remember who you're coming to. He still came the
wrong way. He came declaring what He knew. Nicodemus had solved some things.
He said, I saw the miracles. I saw all those miracles. He
was with all those people by the temple, wasn't he? He was impressed
by that. He was impressed by what he saw
with his eyes. Not once did he acknowledge,
Lord, I heard what you said. I heard what you were preaching.
I heard what you taught in that temple." Just what he saw. It says, "...we know that thou
art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles
that thou doest except God be with him." In our old nature,
we think, God has to be in this because of all these outward
things happening. That's what men and women ask. The first
thing, you mention any local assembly of God's true saints,
men and women who are just sinners, begging for mercy. And they'll
say, how many people you got down there? How you doing? How many are there? How many
have you been baptizing? Do you have any programs for
the children? How many pastors do you have? How many elders
do you have? To them, that's proof that God's
in it. They only see the outside. Is He blessing it? That's with
their eyes. We want to see signs. We want to see something, don't
we? Back here in verse 23 of John
2, one page up to the left. It says, Now when He was in Jerusalem
at the Passover and the Feast Day, many believed in His name,
didn't believe on His name, they believed in Him, when they saw
the miracles which He did. Pharisees in our day, they would
say things like, I would rather see a sermon than hear one. Not
me. Not me. That's fine. I have a
holy walk in this world. That's our debt of gratitude.
Lord saved us. We shouldn't bring reproach on
his gospel. Do everything we could keep from him. I want to
hear his word. Paul said, so faith cometh by
hearing and hearing by the word of God. You can see something
and be fooled. There's illusionists and magicians
and all these things. You can look at something, and
if that's what the old saying was, believe half of, or none
of what you read and half of what you see. We can see something
and be fooled, but if you truly hear God's Word, if He speaks
to you, you'll be made alive. You'll be a product. You'll see
Him. You won't see nothing before, you'll see some outward things,
but if He speaks to you in His Word, you hear Him, now you're
going to see Him, because He's going to reveal Himself to you.
That's how He does it, through His Word, through His command.
It says in verse 3, John 3, 3, Jesus answered, saith unto him,
Verily, verily, that means truly, truly. There's another way we
can say that, you better pay attention. Everybody. Truly, truly, verily, verily,
I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see
the kingdom of God. See. The word see there. See
the kingdom of God. That means to know, to understand,
and to perceive. To know, to understand, and to
perceive. You can't know, you cannot understand, and you cannot
perceive the kingdom of God except Here's the only exception, except
you're born again. You're born again. A baby doesn't
see and that makes it alive. It sees because it is alive.
A baby doesn't become alive because it hears. It hears because it
is alive. It's not become alive because
it's taught. Once there's life, now you can
teach it something. And that's to be born. Then instruction
and wisdom comes. Then it sees and hears and all
those things. Life has to come first, doesn't it? Turn over
to John 5, just a page or two there. John 5, 24. I'm going
to have you turn to a few scriptures,
but it will be good for us to see these. Be reminded. John
5, 24. Barely, barely, there it is again,
truly, truly, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and
believeth on him that sent me, hath, hath everlasting life,
and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto
life." We were dead. We couldn't hear nothing, we
couldn't believe nothing, we couldn't learn nothing, couldn't
be taught nothing. But for those that hath everlasting
life, now you hear His Word. Now you believe on Him. Now you
call, you cry, like a baby, just like a child, unto Him. And there's
no condemnation. Why? Because we've passed from
death to life. We have that life. We have it right now. How can
we hear the Word of God? How can we believe on Him? We
must be made alive. We must be born again, don't
we? Turn over to Matthew chapter 13. Matthew 13, we begin verse 10. And the disciples came and said
unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? And he answered
and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know, that's
the same word, perceive. It's given unto you to see. It's
given unto you to perceive the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,
but to them it's not given. What's in mysteries? That's a
lot. A holy God entered into an everlasting
covenant of grace with His Son for a people to be made just
like Him. And His Son came to this earth. His Son walked this
earth, born of the law, made of a woman, lived perfect in
everything, honored His Father willfully, with joy, sat before
Him, goes to the cross. the shame of the cross, bearing
their sin, being made His people, being made His bride, and the
full wrath of God poured out on Him in holy, divine, perfect
justice. And He rose because it was satisfied. And He comes to His people and
in power and in a word speaks to them in their given life. That's mysterious. That's mysterious
to most people. He answered and said unto them, Because it is
given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but
unto them it is not given. For whosoever hath those given life,
those born anew, right now, to him shall be given, and he shall
have more abundance. They will see more. They're going
to understand more. They're going to have more of a desire to hear
that sincere milk of the word. Tell me plainly. I want to hear
it one more time. How can a man be just before God? I want to
know that. Tell me one more time. But whosoever hath not from him
shall be taken away even that that he hath." Those that only
have a head knowledge, those that's not given new life. No
new ears to hear, no new eyes to see the purpose and the power
of God in Christ manifest in him. All that worldly knowledge,
all that memorization, all that outward show, that physical exercise,
that's going to be taken away. It's going to burn. It's going
to be useless. Verse 13, Therefore speak I to them in parables,
because they seeing see not, and hearing they hear not, neither
do they understand. Do you see that? Do you hear
how plain that is, how laid out that is? If so, if you perceive,
if you see, if you know, you understand, if you hear, how
come? How come? Look down at verse 16. But blessed
are your eyes, for they see. and your ears, for they hear." You are alive. Why that complicated? Almighty
God speaks to His people and says, you see this? I gave you
eyes. You hear that? You are alive.
I made you that way. How tender and comforting isn't
it? This may be a hard question for some people, but it's a simple
question. Who does the blessing? Lord said, blessed are your eyes
and blessed are your ears. Who did that blessing? Does God bless
men and women's eyes and ears and hearts? Does He give them
life or do we bless the Lord by doing it ourselves? It's pretty
simple. Same as who gave you physical
birth? Did God give you physical birth or did you birth yourself?
Did you decide to come to this earth? That's preposterous, isn't
it? You're crazy. Just as crazy as the other. Paul
said that it was God that separated me from my mother's womb and
it was God that shed His grace abundantly in my heart when it
pleased Him. Turn over to 1 John 5. 1 John
5 verse 20. John says, We perceive it, we understand
this, and we rest on it. We know that the Son of God is
come. He come to this earth. He's come
to His people. He shall come to His people.
He shall save them. It's going to happen. We know
the Son of God has come and hath given us an understanding that
we may know Him, that we may see Him. What are we going to
see in here? Him. That we may know Him, that is true, And we
are in Him. That is true. Even in His Son,
Jesus Christ, this is the true God and eternal life. The true
God is the one that came. He gave His life so that we may
have life. Gave us understanding that we
may know Him, that we may see Him, that we may perceive Him,
and that we are in Him. He tells us that. I'm in you,
you're in me. Turn over to Luke 17. We are
in Him, and He is in those that are born of Him. Luke 17. Verse 20. Luke 17, 20. And when He was demanded of the
Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, He answered
them and said, the kingdom of God cometh not with observation.
It doesn't come with observation. Neither shall they say, lo here
or lo there. For behold, the kingdom of God
is within you. It's within you. The kingdom
of God is not in outward things, things we can observe, touch
not, taste not, hand not, law keeping, clean living, morality. Denominations and worldly benefits
and religious knowledge. All those things the Lord condemned.
All those He didn't commit Himself to. It's Christ in you, the hope
of glory. When's Kingdom of God coming?
To His people, it's right now. He's with you. Lo, I'm with you
always. Isn't that something? He's given us this earnest. It's just a taste. Just a taste
of what's to come. Do you see the wisdom in that?
Oh, that's wise. That's so prone to wonder. Prone to leave a God we love.
He dwells in us. How are you going to run from
Him? You can't leave Him. Because He won't leave us. One
more. Ephesians chapter 1. We'll see
this. Ephesians 1 verse 13. in whom he also trusted after
he trusts the Lord. whom you also trusted after that
you heard, you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your
salvation, in whom also after, after you heard that you believed,
and you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which
is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased
possession unto the praise of His glory. We see through this
glass darkly, so dimly now, but we see A whole lot of things. What do you think that means?
I don't know. Can you explain that? What's all the intricacies?
I don't know. I see through glass darkly. But I see. The Lord gave
me eyes to see. Those are the given eyes. from
God through Christ the Word speaking in power in our hearts. We believe
and we're sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. Not our promises,
not man's pledges, His promises, His pledges. And that's the earnest.
That's right now. Just like you go put down money
on a big purchase, you give them earnest money. That portion of
our inheritance, Christ's dwelling in you, He's giving that to us
now. Sing praises to Him, to honor Him, to glory Him. How kind and patient. What a
loving, caring God He is to His people. Salvations of God. That's what our Lord is telling
Nicodemus. We'll look back at our text from John 3. John 3, verse 3. And 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. 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? Can he become an infant
and be born again? Nicodemus came to the Lord by
night. He started off telling everything
he knew, everything he saw, and Christ, that great physician,
He gave him the exact prescription that that sick sinner needed.
We all have the same sickness. We all have the same illness.
It's hereditary, and it's deadly, and it's sin. We all have that.
But boy, our symptoms sure manifest different, don't they? They present
different. Christ dealt with Nicodemus personally. He comes to us in our personal
rebellion. We all have the same sin, but
it comes out in different ways. We rebel different, don't we?
He came and spoke to him, said, you must be born again. And now
Nicodemus is trying to make sense of this carnally, using man's
logic, and he's being sarcastic when he's doing it. Making fun
or making light of the gospel, what man is, who God is, how
Christ saves sinners, that doesn't change anything. That's just
an attempt for people to avoid the truth. Make light of something.
We can skim over this and move on to something different. Many
make fun of me. I've been made fun of. And sometimes
they've just outright said what I preach and the very fact that
I do preach is just silly. It's silly. And others just mock. Some say, oh, you doing the Lord's
work this week? What runs through me? You converted
any of your flock this week?" I said, hey, preacher man, what
are they saying? It's just foolishness, isn't
it? Foolishness. If Nicodemus had come to me and
said something like that, everything in me might just turn around
and walk away. He'd say, get out of here. Hush. Go. Beat it. Our Lord do that. Paul told the church at Corinth,
he said, for preaching, the preaching of the cross, the person and
the work of Christ is to them that perish foolishness. It's
just silly, it's something to be sarcastic about, something
to mock. But unto us, which are saved, us that's been given life,
it's the power of God. Nicodemus came declaring what
he knew. Christ declared all flesh as grass. We're completely
unable to do anything to be saved. The Lord must do it. Just like
He gave you physical life, He's got to give you eternal life.
He has to give you spiritual life. Then Nicodemus asks a question. Christ tells him again. The gospel
doesn't change here, does it? This man keeps asking questions.
He's changing. that the Lord stays right with him. He says
in verse 5, 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. Except a man is born of water
and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
Unless, except we're born again. They're not going to see. That's
why I told him first, wasn't it? They're not going to understand.
They're not going to know the kingdom of God, His mysteries,
His glory. And unless, except a person is
born again from above, they will not enter into that kingdom.
Those mysteries, that glory of Christ and Him crucified. Nicodemus
said, I saw miracles. I see you are from God. And Christ
said, unless you are born again, you can't see anything. And he
said, how can I enter? How can I enter into my mother's
womb again? And Christ said, unless you are
born of the water and the Spirit, you can't enter the kingdom of
God. He met Him right where He lived,
didn't He? And the Gospel didn't change. If I can't perceive it and I
can't enter in, who then can be saved? Remember who He's talking
to. All the way through verse 21,
the Lord's speaking to Nicodemus. We'll go through this for a couple
of weeks. If He can't do it, who can be saved? He was astonished. The disciples were astonished
too, didn't they? They spoke about the rich man
going through the... it was like a camel going through
the eye of the needle. Mary Mark Tennis is in Jesus looking upon
and they say, who can be saved? He said, with men it's impossible,
but with God, but not with God, for with God all things are possible.
Being born again, that regeneration, it's not of the flesh, it's of
God. By His water, the water of the
Word, not man's water, not us washing and cleansing the outside
cup, not getting in the baptismal pool, by Christ the Word and
by the capital S Spirit. He's about to tell that woman
at the well there in chapter 4, he's a water life. You ask
me a water, you'll live forever. You'll have a well running forever.
Here in verse 6 it says, that which is born of the flesh is
flesh and that which is born of the capital S Spirit, God
the Holy Spirit, is Spirit. It's born after Him. It's named
after Him. That's the sons of God. That's heirs. Heirs of Him,
given His name, His likeness and His Spirit, His image and
His Spirit. And it says in verse 7, marvel
not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again. Remember
who he's speaking to, a ruler, a teacher, a well-educated man,
high up, a member of the Sanhedrin. And compared to me, outwardly,
this man seems so knowledgeable, he's so moral, he's so high and
noble. And the Lord says, ye must be
born again. What's that to everybody else?
You. You must be born again. Every one of us. His children
must be born again. Verse 8, how's that going to
happen? 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." That wind, God the Holy Spirit, goes where He
wills. Where the Lord's purposed it,
when He's purposed it, you can hear it. You can hear it coming. But you can't
tell where it came from. You can't tell where He's going,
what He's doing. We just have ears to hear and
faith to believe, faith to trust Him. So is everyone that is born
of the Spirit. You know, when the Lord saved
me, I don't know. In a sense, I know it was before
time and it's for eternity. But he blew on me. I was thinking
big old windmills. Man can put windmills up, try
to harness energy and stuff. That wind, we don't know which
way it's going to come, so you've got to have them before they
can spin. And it hits that windmill and works that windmill. But
you didn't do nothing to that wind, did you? You didn't catch
it? You didn't slow it down? It just keeps on going. Right
where the Lord willed it. Why shouldn't we marvel? This
has been told for a long time. Do you know that? The Lord will
save His people. There in Ezekiel 37. Let's look
back there. Ezekiel 37. Nicodemus had heard
this, and he's read this, and he's taught this more than we
have. Over and over again. But he didn't
have eyes to see it. Ezekiel 37 verse 3. And he said
unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, Lord,
O LORD God, thou knowest." Well you know Ezekiel, I know you
know. Thou knowest. And again he said unto me, prophesy
unto these bones and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the
word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto
these bones, behold I will cause breath to enter into you and
ye shall live and I will lay sinews upon you and will bring
up flesh upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you
and ye shall live and ye shall know that I am the Lord. So I
prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was
a noise. And behold, a shaking, and the
bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld,
lo, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin
covered them above. But there was no breath in them.
The Lord told his preacher, not one of them made by men, one
of his. He said, you go to a bunch of dead bones and you cry unto
them, hear the word of the Lord. He saves his people. He'll give
you life. He'll keep you forever. And something
happened. Them bones started coming together,
but there wasn't no life in it. It is in church every week. You
know what I mean? We get that in our day. Hear
the Lord. This is Him. Come to Him. Everybody
starts congregating and bones start coming together, get some
sinew on them, some ligaments, some muscle tissues, some skin,
but there's still no life. What's that preacher supposed
to do? Preach the word of the Lord to them, the truth of his
salvation alone, hear him, and he says in verse 9, then he said
unto me, prophesy unto the wind. Prophesize Son of Man and say
the wind, you beg God the Holy Spirit. Thus saith the Lord God,
come from the four winds, oh breath, and breathe upon these
slain that they may live. We're dead in trespasses and
sins. We ever want to come into this world whited bones, dead,
nothing, no skin on us. The Lord had to call us by His
Word. We had to hear Him. And the Spirit
had to come with us. We had to be born of the water
and the Spirit. The Spirit had to come and breathe life into
us that we may live. He told us, if you pray the Spirit
moves on those that He's given physical life to, and those that
heard the Word of the Lord, they got a physical ear only, but
that they might be born of the water and the Spirit. That's
my prayer. I pray the Lord is with us. His
Spirit moves upon His people, gives them life. Verse 10 says,
So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath, the breath came
unto them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet an exceeding
great army. It says in verse 11, what's going
to be the result of that? Now they've been gathered together,
life has been breathed into them, they've been born again. Then
He said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house
of Israel. Behold, they say, our bones are
dried and our hope is lost. We are cut off for our parts.
Did they say that before? They said, I'm nothing. I'll
die without you, Lord. No, when did they say that? After
they had life given them. What's all the ones the Lord
committed himself to? We looked at last week. Peter's walking
out on the water. Lord, save me! He had life to
see the Lord that revealed himself to him and to call on him. He
heard his word. He was born again. We cry out,
Lord, save us. What does he say? In verse 12,
Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God,
Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to
come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.
And ye shall know that I am the Lord when I have opened your
graves. O my people, I have brought you up out of your graves, and
shall put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place
you in your own land. Then shall ye know that I, the
Lord, have spoken it, it was His Word, and performed it, it
was His will, saith the Lord." We'll declare those things. And
we need to hear it over and over, don't we? I've already been born
again. Lord save me, I have life. I
need to cry out and hear it again, don't I? That's a change that
takes place. We didn't know to cry, couldn't
cry, didn't have life in us. The Lord breathes life into us
and we cry to Him. We cry to Him and He tells us
again. The message hasn't changed, but the sinner has, hasn't it?
Look back here at Nicodemus. I want you to see this one thing.
John 3 verse 9. Nicodemus answered and said unto
Him, How can these things be? How can these things be? You
see how Christ kept preaching the gospel to Nicodemus in just
a few short sentences. He declared the salvations of
the Lord. The sin and the inability of man. God's electing grace.
His preserving grace. I can't do that in a sentence
or two. He can. The message didn't change, but
the hearer did. He came at first with what he knew. Everything
he had seen. Then he mocked the Lord. sarcastic
about it, and now he asks an earnest question. How could that
be? How could that be? He was taught a lot by men and
taught by other men, but he was just dead bones. You can't teach
anything to a dead man, but when life begins, after their birth,
now you can instruct them and train them up just like children,
can't you? I want to be taught of God. Lord, how can this be?
Show me one more time. Teach me. Hone me. Rub these
stones together. Don't let a man touch them. Fitly
frame us together. Compact us. That's what I pray
His Spirit does. Lord willing, next week we'll
see what else the Lord spoke to Nicodemus. He talked to him
for a few more verses.