Let's open the scriptures this
evening to the Gospel of John, chapter 3. Book of John, chapter
3. You have open before you God's revelation
of himself to us. God's word, the holy scriptures. God gave the scriptures over
a period of about a thousand and five hundred years. He inspired forty men to write
this book, led by the Spirit of God, inspired, as the Spirit
of God gave them every word. He didn't just give them some
thoughts. He gave them the words to write. This is the Word of God. I realize
this is a book written by John. But really, it's written by the
Spirit of God, isn't it? It's God's Word. So it isn't
John's Word to us. It's God's Word to us. This is the Lord's revelation. Now, as originally given, the
Bible had no chapters and it had no verses. We know the chapter
divisions, they happen about, oh, Well, 27, several hundred years ago, a
man by the name of Robert Langton, he took the scriptures and he
divided it into chapters. Well, the Old Testament chapters
were divided into verses by Jews. His name was Nathan, last name
was Nathan. He divided it into verses about
1448. The New Testament, it was divided
into verses, all those chapters, they were divided into verses
by a fellow whose name was Stephens. And that was, he was an Englishman. He did that in 1551. And as is set forth by the historians,
he did it while he was traveling from Switzerland to France. And he took the New Testament
scriptures and the chapters, and then he divided them into
verses. So we understand chapter divisions
and verse divisions. That's not how the scriptures
originally came to us. But boy, it sure is beneficial,
isn't it? It sure is helpful when we're
making our way, such as tonight, John chapter 3, as we look into
this great passage of scripture. There are some divisions of the
scriptures, of the chapters and the verses that really we take
issue with. And I would take issue with this
division right here in the Gospel of John. I would, of course nobody
asked my opinion, and I wasn't around back when it was divided,
but Really, this division ought to have taken place at the end
of the 22nd verse of the 2nd chapter. Because really, John
the 2nd chapter verses 23, 24, and 25, that's the introduction
into the 3rd chapter. Our Lord has been in Jerusalem. There in Jerusalem, of course,
we know he attended the Passover. He stayed on for the festival,
for the feast of unleavened bread. And there he performed lots of
miracles. And there were many people who
were eyewitnesses of these miracles, these tremendous wonders that
set forth the glory of Jesus of Nazareth. And the scripture
says, as a result of people witnessing those miracles, many believed
on Him. Chapter 2, verse 23. Now when He was in Jerusalem
at the Passover, in the feast day, and mind you, this is God's
Passover lamb. He's here at the Passover. He
was obedient to all of the law of God. The law of God said he
had to attend the Passover feast. The law of God said that he must
go to three annual feasts a year as every other Jewish male had
to do. But our Lord Jesus in attending
this Passover feast, He does so as that one who is the Passover
lamb. And this will be the first of
four Passovers that he will attend during the time of his public
ministry. And the last one, at the last
one he will die. He will give himself a ransom
for many. He's God's Passover lamb. How
long has he been the lamb of God who's to be sacrificed on
the behalf of his people? Well, he's always been. He's
the Lamb who was slain from before the foundation of the world.
And here He is, the Lamb of God. Now He's unrecognized by most
people. They don't realize He's the Lamb
of God. They just think He's a great
miracle worker. He does many signs and wonders. And they're so enamored by His
greatness and by His authority, they know He's got some kind
of mission from God. that many of them no doubt believe
that He is the Messiah. And as they witnessed all of
these great miracles that He performed, miracles which are
not identified for us, but as they witnessed these miracles,
as they were eyewitnesses of them, the Scripture says many
believed on Him. Many believed on Him. But our
Lord knew that their faith was not genuine. Their faith was
not the gift of God. He saw deep into their hearts.
And so we have in verse 24, but Jesus did not commit Himself
unto them. There was no commitment of Himself
to them. He did not entrust Himself to
them, for He knew that they did not entrust themselves to Him. The word believed in verse 23
and the word commit in verse 24 are virtually identical. There was no commitment in their
soul to Jesus of Nazareth. They made no commitment, they
did not rest fully in Him. These were some people who also
were still embracing the idea of salvation by obedience to
the law. They were going about to establish
a righteousness of their own as the Apostle Paul sets forth
in Romans chapter 10. They weren't resting fully on
the Lord Jesus and salvation. We know this and we must be confident
of this. We must be assured of this. This must be instructed to us
in our hearts. Salvation is fully, completely,
resting all of our hope, all of the hopes of our souls for
life and for salvation and for forgiveness, for everything that
God requires. It must be an absolute, committal,
totally and fully to Jesus Christ the Lord. And our Lord Jesus
knew these people did not really trust Him. They were kind of wrapped up
in the miracles. This was a marvelous thing to
them. But they did not turn their back on their own self-righteousness. They did not fully embrace the
Son of God. He knew that their faith was
not real faith because He didn't give them faith. Faith is a gift
of God. This was merely a counterfeit
faith. which resulted from seeing His
mighty works. They got caught up in the miracles
which the Lord Jesus did, and consequently, they professed
to believe Him, but they didn't really commit themselves to Him.
There is true faith. Thank God there is true faith.
But there is also false faith. There is a faith that acknowledges
who Jesus is but makes no commitment to Him to be saved by His grace
and by His blood and His righteousness alone. There is a sort of faith
that exists that involves no real commitment to Jesus Christ. You say, can you give me an illustration
of that in the Bible? Most certainly. James chapter
2 verse 19, James says, Thou believest that there is one God. Thou doest well. The devils also
believe and tremble. But it is not a committal faith
to Jesus Christ. They believe, they know for a
fact who He is. And they know that there is only
one God. You say, well, I believe that
there's a God. And people, there are lots of
folks today who will say to you, well, I know I'm alright because
I believe in God. And I believe there's one God. And James says, well, you do
real well. You're just like the devils.
They believe that much. And they go one beyond you. They
tremble. They tremble in His presence. In Matthew chapter 8 and verse
29, the demons, they cried out to Him. They said, what have
we to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of God? Art Thou come hither
to torment us before the time? The demons believe that He is
God. They believe that there's a judgment.
And they believe that they're going to be condemned by this
one who is the judge. And they tremble in His midst. In Luke 4.34, they said to him,
let us alone. What have we to do with you,
Jesus of Nazareth? Are you come to destroy us? The
demon said, I know who you are, the Holy One of God. Luke chapter 4 and verse 41,
it says, and devils also, they came out of many crying and saying,
thou art the Christ of God. Thou art the Christ of God. And
He rebuked them, suffering them not to speak, for they knew that
He was the Christ. They knew that He was the Christ.
So the devils know and they believe that there's one God. They know
and believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the Son of the
living God. They know and believe there's
going to be a final day of reckoning, but theirs is not, of course,
God-given faith. So there is a kind of faith that
is not real, genuine faith. And our Lord knew that the belief
of these people was not a heart confidence in Him. There was
no real belief in resting in Him. Romans chapter 10, for with
the heart man believeth unto righteousness. With the heart.
Oh, we're in the heart business. We're in the heart business.
Many years ago, we were up in Fairmont, West Virginia, and
Brother Scott Richardson, Tim James, and I were there standing,
talking to him. We used to preach at his Easter
Bible conference year in and year out, and he pointed to us,
and he touched us right in the middle of the chest, and he said,
listen, boys, because we was much younger back then, he said,
listen, boys, we're in the heart business. We're not in the head
business. Now this gospel has got to go
through the head. That's right. It's got to go
through the head. It's got to go through the ear
gate. And as you read, it's got to go through the eye gate. But
it's not enough to go through the eye gate and through the
ear gate. It's got to penetrate the heart and only God can make
it do that. Only God can make the Word of
the Gospel, the Good News of full and free redemption, of
salvation by pure grace. Only God can drive the Word deep
into the heart. Only God can make it a message
of saving grace to us. And for these people, God wasn't
pleased to make it a message of saving grace. God ordained that these people
be witnesses of the miracles, and yet they not have faith. Now you listen. Only God can
give faith, and He gives it to whoever He wants to. He doesn't owe it to you. And
he doesn't owe it to me. And if we've got any sense whatsoever
in our very innermost being, we'd fall down before him and
say, oh sovereign king, you can show mercy to whom you want to
show mercy. And you can just keep a hard
heart. You can make my heart even harder. Oh God, show me mercy. Show me
mercy for Christ's sake. I'm not deserving. I'm the vilest
of the vile. I've got nothing to present to
you. I've got nothing to recommend myself to you. I've got no works. Lord, I can't even muster up
any tears. I don't have any repentance.
I don't have any faith. Oh Lord, I'm just a pitiful,
pitiful case. And I need you all together.
I'll tell you what, if you go to the Lord like that, He's not
going to turn you away. But you're going to have to go
to him like that, and the only way you'll ever go to him like
that is if he draws you. He's got to draw you. Otherwise,
our faith will be just a faith like these folks had. It's kind
of a giving mental assent. Well, yeah, I know it's true.
But it never gets down to the heart, never works its way down
into the heart. I know this about faith, and
I know this about repentance. They're both gifts of God. They're
both gifts of God. And where there is repentance,
there's always faith. And where there is faith, there's
always repentance. Acts 5.31 says, Him hath God
exalted with His right hand to be a prince and a savior for
to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. What
is repentance? Well, it's turning away from
everything else. What is faith? It's turning to
Jesus Christ. And you can't turn to Jesus Christ
without turning away from everything else. And when you turn away
from everything else, it's the Lord Jesus that you turn to.
That's why in the Bible sometimes you'll read some men who will
say, repent. Our Savior said, repent for the
Kingdom of God is nigh. And other times, you'll read
like the Apostle Paul said in Philippians chapter 16 to the
Philippian jailer. He said, believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. You say, well, but the
Apostle Paul didn't say anything about repentance. And the Savior,
when He said, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish,
He didn't say anything about believing. Well, that's because
when you preach repentance, you are preaching faith. And when
you preach faith, you are preaching repentance. Because when you
turn to the Lord Jesus Christ alone, for all of your hope with
God, you necessarily have to turn away from everything else,
and that's repentance. So they go together. They go
together. Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven
is nigh, the Scripture says. 2 Peter chapter 3 and verse 9,
The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count
slackness, but is longsuffering to usward, to the elect, not
willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. To repentance. These people didn't
repent. In other words, they did not
turn away from their own self-righteousness. They did not turn away from this
general belief of the Jews that salvation is by works. That salvation
is by law duty. That salvation is by keeping
the commandments. They did not turn away from those
things. Therefore, their faith was not
true, genuine, God-given faith. Well then, how is it, just how
is it that a man comes to really and truly and honestly, sincerely
and genuinely, how does he come to turn away from every false
way? How does he come to turn away
from every false hope and every false belief and then turn to
the Lord Jesus Christ and believe on the name of the only begotten
of the Father? Well, the answer is given here
in John chapter 3. You must be born again. You must
be born again. And like I said last week, here's
the connection between the end of chapter 2 and this passage
in chapter 3 which talks about a Pharisee named Nicodemus. Here's
the connection. In order to believe, You have
to be born again. And those who are born again
are those who have been brought to believe. To believe. Just why is it? What is the reason
why some people believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, number
one, because they're the elect of God. They're the beloved of
God. I don't have any difficulty saying
to you, and I'm certainly not ashamed to say what is said there
in Acts chapter 13 and verse 48, and as many as were ordained
to eternal life believed. If you believe deep down in your
soul, you've laid a hold on the Son of God. You embrace Him. You love Him. You rest in Him
fully. You have committed your soul,
your body, your all, everything that concerns you, you've committed
them to Jesus Christ the Lord. I can tell you exactly why it
is that you believe, because you have ordained eternal life
before the world began. And we're going to absolutely
have to give all the glory to God. This matter of salvation,
it's not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according
to His mercy He had saved us. Everything's got to be attributed
to God. And if we believe, I know why
we believe, because God chose us unto salvation. That's why
we believe. And we're not hesitant to say
that. We don't say it and try to cover
our mouths a little so that people won't quite get what we're saying.
We say this, we want to be understood loud and clear. To God be the
glory, great things He hath done. If you believe the gospel, God
ordained you to salvation before the world ever began. It's all
of grace. God's election of grace. And
if you believe this gospel, I'll tell you this, it's the result
of the Lord Jesus being your substitute. Dying in your stead
on the cross. It's not your faith that puts
your sin away. It's not your confession of sin
that puts sin away. Your confession of sin, your
acknowledgement of sin, now you'll be brought to acknowledge sin.
And you'll be brought to confess your sinfulness. There's no question
about that. But it's not powerful enough
to put away sin. And if you wept a bucket full
of tears, if you just wept from now on about your sin, your tears,
the flood of tears falling from your eyes would never wash away
one sin. Sin was only drowned in the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Your confession and your faith
in no way, shape or form puts sin away. Faith embraces Christ
Jesus who put it away by His death on the cross. And the reason
you believe is because He died for you. And the reason you believe
is because the Spirit of God has quickened you. You're born
again. You're born again. And this is
what connects these passages together. You see, here's this
man Nicodemus. I'll tell you, I believe he's
one of the ones who believed having seen the miracles. And
we know that the great things that Jesus did had an effect
upon Nicodemus. Notice again, and I know I've
already read it, but notice again the last part of chapter 2 verse
23. That many believed in His name
when they saw the miracles which He did. And the miracles, that's
what Nicodemus is talking about. Look down in the second verse
of chapter 3. No man, the last statement, for
no man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be
with him. You see, Nicodemus, he is the
epitome of a man who had this shallow faith, having witnessed
the miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ, but he wasn't a true
believer. And the Lord Jesus knew his heart. The Lord Jesus saw his heart
and saw in his heart unbelief. No commitment to the Son of God. There's no forsaking of the Law
of Moses. He's still a legalist. Nicodemus
is still a self-righteous Pharisee. And our Lord knows His faith
is a shallow faith. It's a false faith. It's not
a genuine God-given faith. He's just one of those who is
wrapped up in the miracles. So really, My understanding of
this passage is this. That when the Lord Jesus says,
or when it's said of the Lord Jesus in verses 24 and 25, that
Jesus did not commit Himself unto them because He knew all. Indeed and not that any man should
testify of man, for He knew what was in man. It's like going into
chapter 3. Here's an illustration of exactly
what He's talking. Nicodemus is an illustration. He's an example of a religious
man who's got caught up in the miracles of Jesus of Nazareth. But he's not a true believer.
And he won't be a true believer until he's born of the Spirit.
He's got to be born again. And this issue of the new birth,
it's already been addressed in the book of John. Go back to
the first chapter. Go back to the first chapter.
Look at verse 11. John 1, 11. He came unto His
own. His own received Him not. He
didn't receive Him. But as many as received Him.
Have you received Christ Jesus? I hope you have. I pray that
you have. And if you received Him, you've
received Him in all of His offices, right? You've received Him as
your prophet to teach you, as your priest who offered the sacrifice
to God that appeased His justice. And you receive Him as your Lord,
as your King, prophet, priest, and King. You receive Him as
your Great High Priest. You receive Him as your Passover
Lamb. You receive Him as God in the
flesh? You receive Him. But as many
as receive Him, to them gave He power, authority, privilege
to become the sons of God. Even to them that believe on
His name, and it's not a period there. This statement is not
over. There is a verse division and
maybe that verse division might confuse people here. But there's
no end of the sentence here at verse 12. Even to them that believe
on His name. And I know when I was growing
up, I wanted to go to church camp. And my family couldn't afford
to send me to church camp. Back then, church camp was like
$10 a week. Well, there's three kids in our
family. That's $30. Mom and dad couldn't
afford that. But we attended a church and they said, well,
listen, this is what we'll do. If any of you can, if you can
memorize 100 verses of scripture, the church will pay you away.
I was eight years old. I wasn't studying. I quoted 100
verses of scripture. I got to go to camp free. And
one of the verses that I quoted was John 1, 12. I didn't even
think about going into verse 13. And frankly, I didn't hardly
know there was a verse 13. I never paid any attention to
verse 13. And by the way, I tell you, the next year, they said,
we'll do the same thing. And I said, what do you quote
200 verses of the script? Well, you can go two weeks. I
said, I'll do that. So I did that the next year.
Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against
thee. Memorize God's word. You can memorize other things.
Study and memorize God's Word. Isn't that right? I think that's
pretty good advice. But I memorized John 1, 12 and
I didn't bother with verse 13. I didn't pay attention that there
was a verse 13 there. But the reason people receive
Him is set forth in verse 13. Which were born. All who receive
Him. In other words, those who don't
receive Him. Because it's already set up in
verse 11, He came unto His own and His own received Him not.
Those who don't receive Him, they're not born again. What's
the evidence of not being born again? Unbelief. Unbelief. What's the evidence of being
born again? Belief. Belief doesn't bring
in the new birth. Belief doesn't make you to be
born again. It isn't believe on Jesus and
get born again. There's a national preacher,
he's on about everywhere, and he preaches that if you believed
on Jesus, we believe you got born again. No! He's got the cart before the
horse. Our brother read to us of those folks that Ezekiel preached
to. They couldn't do anything. There
was no life in them until the breath of God made them alive. It's only when God's breath breathes
upon us. Brother Kevin read for us in
the study, Job 37, the frost is the breath of God. I tell
you, God by His breath, He can bring things to freeze and He
can thaw too. And by His breath, He thaws us. He speaks life to us and when
He speaks life, we live. And the evidence of being alive
is you receive Him, you believe Him. These are born, not of blood. By the way, in the original,
that word blood is bloods. It has an S on it. You could
just write that in your Bible if you want to. Not of bloods. Well, what do you mean? Well,
it's not of circumcision. It doesn't have anything to do
with it. It's not of, especially to the Jews of course, that would
pertain to them, but also here's something else that would pertain
to the Jews, not of the blood of the Passover lambs. The blood of the Passover lambs.
Throughout the Old Testament, did any of that blood put sin
away? Now God commanded them. But was it the blood on the door
that really and actually put the sins of that firstborn child
away? No! It's the blood that all of those
bloods pointed to. The blood of the Son of God.
Which were born not of bloods, not the blood of circumcision,
not the blood of their sacrifices, because the blood of bulls and
goats can't ever put away sin. Hebrews chapter 10 says that.
And not of blood, this is in your heritage. In other words,
it's not in the bloodline. Nor of the will of the flesh.
Let men preach up free will all they want to. The Bible says
it's nor of the will of the flesh. The reason you believe is not
due to the will of the flesh. It's not because you exercise
your free will. You don't have a free will. Your
will is enslaved. Nor of the will of man. It's
not because of somebody else's will that you receive Christ
Jesus. And it's not due to the will
of somebody else that you're born. Well, what is the reason
why some believe on His name? They're born of God. Born of
God. James says, of his own will begat
he us with the word of truth. Born of God. And over here then
in chapter 3, Nicodemus, you hadn't been born of God. You've
got to be born of God. You've got to be born of God.
Now what do we know about Nicodemus? You know what his name means?
Victor or Conqueror. It's a Greek name and it wasn't
unusual for a Jew to have a Greek name because of the presence
of the Romans. So his name means Victor or Conqueror. By the way, it's the same root
word for Nike. Swoosh. Come on, you know what
the swoosh is. You know, Nike is the actual
name of a Roman goddess, the goddess of victory. So next time
you put on your goddess of victory shoes, then you can remember
what Nike stands for. But it's the root word Nicodemus
comes from, victor or conqueror. And we know this, he was a Pharisee.
Who was a Pharisee? What were the Pharisees? Well,
the name was actually given to them by others. Did you know
that? The name Pharisees was given to them by others and it
means separated ones. Because the name that these men
gave to themselves was pious ones. And they started to originate
in between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Sometime
during that 400 year period of silence, that's when the Pharisees
came into being. These men were very pious, very
law-abiding. You know, one of the most famous,
of course, Saul of Tarsus, the man that he studied under, he
was a Pharisee, Gamaliel. And if you ever read Jewish history,
you've heard of Josephus. Somebody was mentioning, I can't
remember who it was, somebody said something to me about Josephus
the other day. He was a Pharisee. He was a Pharisee. They were
hyper-legalists, no question about it. They sought to establish
the righteousness of their own by obedience to the law, not
merely to the laws of Moses. but to the various laws and rules
and regulations that were passed down to them from their forefathers.
A rabbi would come up with another law, another religious rule,
it would be tossed into the legal pool. You've got to keep that
one too. And they had some of the most ridiculous laws and
we don't have time for me to give you too many of them, but
ladies, you'll appreciate this. They believed that if a woman
On the Sabbath day, if she looked into a looking glass, she'd broken the law. That's
a sin. If you look into a mirror on the Sabbath day, that's a
sin. You know why? Because you might see a gray
hair and be tempted to pull it out. So that was a sin. You couldn't do that. That was
a law passed down from one of the old rabbis. Obviously, they didn't have hair
coloring back then. Here's another law. I'm just
reading some of them today. They knew back then that vinegar,
they knew back then even as we know now, that vinegar is a good
remedy for ailments. For a cold or for a sore throat,
for instance. So on the Sabbath you could drink
vinegar, but you couldn't gargle with it, because that's a work. That's a work. You could drink
it, but you couldn't gargle with it. You've got to be careful.
You've got to be careful. And then you'll like this one. I'll give you this one and I'll
move on. If you had chicken, you had a chicken and your chicken
laid an egg on the Sabbath day, you can eat it. But the next day, he got to kill
the chicken, because the chicken worked on the Sabbath day. I like that one. I like that one. There was an
old rabbi who came up with that. He just tossed it into the legal
pool with all the rest of it. And you see, the Pharisees, they
embraced all of these things. But their greatest error, they
hated the gospel of grace. They hated the Lord Jesus Christ.
They couldn't stand the message of the prophets, so they killed
Him. They couldn't stand John the Baptist. They couldn't stand
the Savior. Couldn't stand His disciples.
Too much grace for them. And the successors of the Pharisees,
and they are alive today. The successors to the Pharisees,
they still make themselves known in that they're going about to
establish a righteousness of their own, and they won't submit
to the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Pharisees, they had religion,
but it was external. Our Lord said, you're like whited
sepulchers. You're all fixed up on the outside,
but within you're full of dead men's bones. What do we know
about Nicodemus? He was a Pharisee, and I'll tell
you something else we know. He was a ruler of the Jews, which
most likely means he was a member of the Sanhedrin, the greatest
judicial council of the Jews. And he was a ruler of the Jews.
He was a ruler or a master of the Jews. Go over into verse
10, and I read this last week, but I want to get into it just
a little bit further. Jesus answered, said unto him, Art thou a master
of Israel, and knowest not these things? And I want you to understand
that... Let me read it to you out of
the Amplified. Any of you ever read the Amplified? Sometimes
it will help you. You've got to be careful, but
sometimes it will help. Here's the Amplified, verse number
10. Are you the teacher of Israel? And that is the correct, that's
the correct translation. because there's a definite article
there. Are you the teacher, the teacher of Israel? And yet do
not know nor understand these things? Are they strange to you?
That's what the Savior said. This man, he was the master teacher,
evidently the most illustrious teacher in all of Israel, but
he didn't know spiritual things. He's just a dead dog sinner. And he came to Jesus by night.
Now we know that Nicodemus is mentioned again, twice again,
in the book of John. At some point we believe he was
regenerated by the Spirit of God, he's quickened by the Spirit
of God, but I don't see any indication of it in this passage of Scripture.
I don't see that. But I'll tell you, the Savior
initiated A confrontation with Nicodemus. And I know this man
thought it was his idea to come to Jesus by night. Really, the
Lord is bringing him in. He's bringing him in. He's created
a little interest. You know, the Lord does it. He
creates some interest in us. We get a little interest and
then He just pulls us a little bit more. And we get a little
bit more interest. And then first thing you know,
Before it's all said and done, He's quickened us and we find
ourselves believing Him. We find ourselves rejoicing in
Him. Believing in His salvation by
grace. Who did that? Well, the Lord
did. It's like Nicodemus. Of Him it can be said. It's like
it's said of all of the elect. All that the Father giveth me,
cometh to me. And here's the Lord. He's just
pulling Nicodemus in. And him that cometh to me, I'll
let no wise cast out. And in the end of the book, we
find that he's a disciple of the Lord Jesus. And he helps
his friend and says, I want to help you with the body of the
Savior. Nicodemus, he's an old Pharisee. But you know what? We're all
Pharisees at heart. Isn't that right? We're all Pharisees
at heart. The Lord has to conquer us. Like
He conquered this fellow. He's got to be born again. He's got to have a new life.
He's got to give it to Him. It's His to give or not to give. That's
up to Him.