Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. Welcome to our program this morning.
I'm glad you could join us. And if you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I've been preaching a series entitled, You Must Be
Born Again. And this series, the base text
for this is obviously, if you're familiar with the Bible, is John
chapter three, where Christ, speaking to a lost religious
man named Nicodemus, who came to him and asked him some questions,
and Christ told him, he says, you must be born again. You must be born again. Now this
is the fourth message in that series. And I urge you, if you
haven't heard the first three, get those messages. You can order
them, or you can, we send them free of charge, or you can go
to our website and listen to them there. But it's you must
be born again. This is part four. And you know,
usually when I start a series like that, I don't know how many
messages it's going to be, because what I'm trying to do is go through
the scriptures, considering the issue of the new birth, being
born again, because it's such a misunderstood subject. But
over in the book of John, chapter three and verse three, Christ
made this statement to Nicodemus. He says, verily, verily, I say
unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom
of God. Now, what he's talking about
here is this. in light of the reality of our
fall in Adam. Now, did you understand that?
The Bible teaches that we all fell in Adam, fell into a state
of sin and death. Adam brought the whole human
race into a state of sin and death. And so that when we are
born, we're born spiritually dead. And I've talked about that
in all four of these, in all three of the other messages,
and I'll talk about it today. And what that means, spiritual
death means that we have no capacity to know and understand savingly
and embrace and love and believe the things of the Spirit of God.
And I'll show you a passage on that that I quote all the time.
Well, I'll just quote it right now, 1 Corinthians 2.14, but
I wanna go over there in just a moment. which says the natural
man. And what is the natural man there?
That's all of us as we are naturally born into this world. The natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither
can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned. And that's what Christ is saying,
except you're born again, You don't have the spiritual capacity
to understand the things of the Spirit of God. Now, you can understand
intellectually what I'm saying, but what he's saying, you can't
see them, you can't see the glory of them, the value of them, the
importance of them. These things are life and death.
This is the most, if I were to walk into your living room and
open up a pouch and show you a million dollars, you'd see
the value of that right off. But if I knock on your door with
my Bible in hand and said, I wanna talk to you about the gospel,
what would you probably do? If you didn't know I was coming
or hadn't invited me, you'd say, well, I gotta get rid of this
guy. But see, here's the gospel, and this is a treasure. Paul
called it the glory of God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ,
and it's a treasure. but in order for us to see the
value of that treasure. And I'll say this, even true
believers who've been born again, we don't see the full value of
it yet, but we see it because he's given us spiritual eyes.
Well, let me show you a passage that deals with that over here
in Matthew 13. Matthew 13 is a passage that deals with what
we call the parables of the kingdom. And it has to do with the gospel
going out and the different effects that it has on people. For example,
the first parable that he shows in Matthew 13 is the parable
of the soils. And he shows how the gospel,
which is the seed, going out, being preached, and it falls
on the wayside. In other words, people don't
even want to listen to it. It falls on stony ground. People
receive it, but it doesn't take root. It falls on thorny ground. People receive it for a time,
but then the cares of the world choke it out. And then he talks
about the good ground here. It falls on good ground. And
the good ground refers to the sinner who's been born again
by the Spirit, who's been given a new heart. That's what the
Bible says. If you've been born again, you've
been given a new heart. What is the heart? It's the mind.
You've been given a new way of thinking of things, a new way
of judging things. It's the affections, what you
love and what you desire. It's the will, it's change the
will. Man, listen, people today think
that salvation comes because of their free will. They hear
it, God loves everybody, Christ died for everybody, now you just
have to make the choice out of your own free will. That's not
what the scripture teaches. Scripture tells us the will of
man is just as spiritually dead as his mind. You cannot see the
value. I'll never forget a brother years
ago was talking to somebody else about the gospel. The man who was listening to
him didn't believe the true gospel, but here's what he said. He said,
well, I've got it figured out this way. He said, salvation's
like a big chocolate cake, and anybody that wants a piece of
it can have it. Well, my brother, my friend,
who believes the gospel, he looked at the man, he said, okay, well,
let's make that illustration you just used, let's make it
biblical. Salvation's a big piece of chocolate cake, but by nature,
everybody born into this world hates chocolate cake. Now, that's
the situation. Now if you don't believe that,
you don't have spiritual eyes. Man by nature, the natural man
receiveth not the things of the spirit. So you have to be given
spiritual life. And part of that is spiritual
eyes to see. The eyes being there a metaphor
for the mind, the affections, the will, the desire, the love
for it. And that's what the heart is,
the mind, the affections, the will, the conscience. How you
judge things. What value you to put on this
thing and what value on that thing and that thing's worthless
or that thing's worth everything. You see, that's what happens.
That's what the Bible means in 2 Corinthians 5 when it talks
about those who are born again are new creations, new creatures. They have a new way of judging
things. What I used to think was worthless, now I see it's
everything. Think about the Apostle Paul,
when he was known as Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee who hated
the gospel, hated Jesus of Nazareth, hated Christians, judged them
to be worthless, less than worthless. And then on the Damascus road,
God struck him blind, but then gave him eyes to see. He did
that physically for Paul, but it had a spiritual significance,
and Paul gained spiritual eyes, and now what he hated and judged
worthless, now he loved and judged to be everything. Well, this
is what Christ is talking about here. Look at Matthew chapter
13 and verse 10. Now Christ had been preaching
the gospel. He preached it in the Sermon on the Mount. He had
talked about it from then on. And the Pharisees rejected it.
And then he began to speak in parables. He began with the parables
of the kingdom. And verse 10, now listen to this,
this is Matthew 13. And the disciples came and said
unto him, why speakest thou unto them in parables? Now you know
what most people think of, or I'll say a lot of people, sometimes
I say most people, Sometimes I'm right on that, but a lot
of people think of parables as something like being simple children's
stories. In other words, here he was preaching
deep doctrine, then he simplified it in a parable. Well, that's
not true. The parables were not children's stories. They were
not simplifications of the gospel. They were actually They were
metaphors and stories that really kind of hid the gospel, unless
you knew the meaning of the parable. But listen to what Christ says
when they ask him this. Now look at it again, verse 10.
And the disciples came and said unto him, why speakest thou unto
them in parables? Verse 11, he answered and said
unto them, because it is given unto you, The disciples now,
to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them
it is not given. Think about that. They had a
gift, the disciples had a gift. What? The knowledge of the mysteries
of the kingdom. The kingdom of heaven. Now why
does he call it a mystery? Because a mystery in the Bible
is something that is totally Totally something that you do
not know until God sovereignly chooses to reveal it. That's
what a mystery in the Bible. The mystery of the gospel. How
am I going to know the gospel? It's not going to come to me
naturally. I'm not going to figure it out on my own. It comes by
God's revelation. That's why Christ said in Matthew
11, he said, the father knoweth the son, and the son knoweth
the father, and he, the only whom the son reveal him. And
then he said, come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy
laden. So it was not given to them. And listen to verse 12
now. Matthew 13, for whosoever hath
whatever revelation God has given to anybody, to him shall be given. And he shall have more abundance.
In other words, God doesn't just stop with a little light. He
gives more light. And he says, but whosoever hath
not from him shall be taken away, even that he hath. Think about
the Pharisees. What did they have? Well, they
had the writings of Moses. They had many of the Psalms. They had many of the prophets. They had the scriptures. But
they looked at those scriptures through self-righteous blind
eyes, religiously blind eyes. It's like people today, they
read their Bibles, but they miss its message because they're not
looking for the right things. And God has not revealed Himself
to them. When Christ told the Pharisees in John 5, you search
the scriptures, verse 39, in them you think you have eternal
life. They are they which testify of me. He says, you depend on
Moses, you look to Moses, but Moses will be your judge. Moses
wrote of me. I've got a book that I wrote,
I've mentioned this a couple of times, and I'm not trying
to sell books, we give them to you. And this one's called Rightly
Dividing the Word. Now here's what I'm telling you.
It is God's prerogative. either to reveal the mysteries
or to hide them from you or from me. God is sovereign. And in his wisdom and in his
will, he'll do what he wants to do. That's his business. But
our business here on earth, as we read the scriptures, as you
hear me preaching, is to seek the Lord. Seek the Lord. And the first step in seeking
the Lord is in His Word. Don't go for people's opinions,
and especially, do not go for the majority opinion. Broad is
the way that leads to destruction. Many there be that go therein,
but narrow is the right way. Straight is the gate and narrow
is the way. Few there be that find it. Many are called, but
few are chosen. I'm gonna talk about that in
later messages, about calling. Many are called, but few are
chosen. So don't go by the majority. You say, well, I'm gonna go to
this church because they've got the majority of the people. Everybody's
going there. My friend, that's not seeking
the Lord. You may be seeking friendships. You may be seeking
social activity. You may be seeking companions
for your children, activities for your children. You may be
seeking a place you can be comfortable. But be careful there, because
the place you may be comfortable, it may be telling you what you
want to hear instead of what you need to hear. So don't go
by the majority. And I'd say don't go by the minority. Don't say, well, I need to go
this church because there's not many people there and they must
have the truth. Study the word. Read the word. That's the key. Isaiah said it back in his day,
Isaiah 820, to the law and to the testimony, if they speak
not according to this word, there's no line in them. Well, that book
that I wrote is called Rightly Dividing the Word. And it's up
to God to reveal it to you. God is sovereign in that matter.
But there are rules of scriptural interpretation. And I wrote about
those rules and gave examples of them in that book. So order
that book and study it. Study the Word. That book is
a guide. Nothing that I write is a replacement
or stands alongside the Word of God. It's a guide to take
you through the Word of God. But this is what he's saying.
The Pharisees, they had the scriptures. But one passage says, where Christ
said, the light that is in them is darkness. They have the light
outwardly, but not inwardly. And so he says, this is Matthew
13, 13, therefore speak I to them in parables, because they
seen, see not. They have eyes to see, but they
don't see. They don't see what they need
to see. Because except you're born again,
you cannot see the kingdom of heaven. And so they seeing, see
not. And hearing, they hear not. Neither
do they understand. You see that? They heard Christ
speak. They heard Moses when they read
him. But they didn't hear the reality of it. They didn't hear
the real story. The gospel of how God saves sinners. like me, who deserve nothing
but death and hell based upon my best, through the, by His
grace, undeserved, unearned favor, His mercy, His goodness, through
Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ. Who is Jesus Christ? He is God
manifest in the flesh. That's who He is. The gospel
wrapped up in His glorious person. and the power of His finished
work. My friend, what Christ did on that cross, let me tell
you something. Christ died on that cross, having
all the debt of the sins of God's sheep, His elect, charged to
His account, He went under the wrath of God as my surety. and He substituted Himself in
my place under the penalty of that law and He suffered and
He bled and He died and He redeemed His people from their sins. He
didn't make salvation possible if anybody would accept Him.
That's not what He did. By His death on the cross, He
established an everlasting, infinite righteousness that demands the
salvation of every sinner for whom he died and was buried and
arose again. That's right. Christ's righteousness
demands that God's people be born again and live forever in
glory with Him. There'll be no one in hell for
whom Christ died. No, sir. The Bible doesn't teach
that. That Christ died for those who
perish. Those who perish, perish on their
own. They have no mediator. They have
no substitute. They have no savior. They have
no righteousness. And that's what people don't
understand today. Well, look at verse 14 of Matthew
13. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which
saith, by hearing you shall hear and shall not understand, and
seeing you shall see and shall not perceive. You'll hear things,
but you won't understand them. You'll see things, but you won't
perceive them. Verse 15, for this people's heart is waxed
gross. Now, what does that mean? Well,
that's King James language, isn't it? It means they've grown hard.
They've grown hard and their ears are dull of hearing and
their eyes they have closed. They hear the gospel and they
close their eyes to it and they shut off their hearing lest at
any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their
ears and should understand with their heart and should be converted
and I should heal them. Now, what's the problem? Well,
the gospel tells sinners. that when God the Holy Spirit
brings a sinner to faith in Christ, that means forsaking everything
else, forsaking all your past religion, all your past refuges,
all your past assurances, everything that you held dear. Again, think
about the Apostle Paul. In Philippians chapter three,
you read that passage, he talks about all the things that he
used to hold onto and value as making him right with God. He
said, I was a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee of Pharisees, circumcised
the eighth day. But he says, when God opened
his eyes in the new birth and showed him Christ and his righteousness,
all of that became lost. He said, I counted all but done
that I may win Christ. That became dung. You know what
dung is, don't you? All right, that became nothing,
less than nothing, and Christ is everything. And they don't
wanna let go. What he's saying here, these
people, they didn't wanna let go of their religion. They didn't
wanna let go of their experiences. They didn't wanna let go of their
religious exercises. But verse 16 of Matthew 13, but
blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear. Except a man be born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God. Look over in the book of 1 Corinthians,
and we'll close with this one today. I've got many more scriptures
that deal with this subject. But in 1 Corinthians 2, this
is the one that I quote quite often. But verse 14, 1 Corinthians
2, it says, the natural man, now that's, as I said before,
that's all of us as we are naturally born in Adam, we fell in Adam,
ruined by the fall, and we're naturally born into a state of
spiritual death. spiritually dead. That's why
we must be born again or we won't see, we won't hear, we won't
believe. There's no faith in us naturally. If God, listen, if you're sitting
under the preaching of the gospel and God leaves you alone and
the Spirit does not come and give life miraculously, you won't
believe it. You won't. Now you might believe
a false gospel which puts salvation conditioned on you, but you won't
believe God. And that's the thing. You see,
the new birth, most people today think, well, you make the choice,
you exercise your free will, and you believe, and then you're
born again. Oh, no. The natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
unto him. He said over in 1 Corinthians
1.18, the preaching of the cross. That's the glorious person and
finished work of Christ. His righteousness imputed as
the only ground of salvation. That's foolishness to those who
are perishing. You mean to tell me that salvation
is not based on something that I do or something I decide? No. It's based upon what Christ did
on that cross. And so he says, he won't receive
the things of the Spirit of God, they're foolishness unto him,
neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned,
spiritually judged, spiritually understood. And what is it he
can't see? He can't see those things that
are freely given to God's people, verse 12 up there. But look at
verse 15. He says, but he that is spiritual. Now who are the spiritual? Well,
that's the people who are better than those who won't receive
it. No. No, the Bible doesn't teach that. Well, if you're in
a revival meeting and the preacher's down there begging for you to
come up the aisle and you make the decision to walk the aisle,
that means you're spiritual and the others who don't, they're
natural. No, that's not what the Bible teaches. That's not
in the Bible. A spiritual person is one who
is born again by the Spirit, who has been given life from
the dead through the preaching of the gospel and the power of
the Spirit. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to
everyone that believeth. So he that is spiritual judgeth
or discerneth all things. Now what does he mean all things?
He's not talking about everything without exception. He's talking
about all things that have to do with salvation, how God saves
sinners. All things that have to do with
a right relationship with God. All things that have to do with
the forgiveness of sin. How can I be forgiven of my sins? It must be on a just ground.
And so I sing, what can wash away my sins? Nothing but the
blood of Jesus. People that don't understand
that, they think baptism washes away their sins. They think their
tears of repentance washes away their sins. They think their
good works washes away their sins, but none of that does.
You're not discerning properly, you don't have eyes to see. You
understand that? What can wash away my sins? Nothing.
Absolutely nothing but the blood of Jesus Christ. And that's it. What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my hope and peace.
This is all my righteousness. God requires righteousness. But
I don't have righteousness in myself and I can't work it. There's
none righteous, no not one. None that doeth good, no not
one. None that seeketh after the Lord, no not one. Where am
I going to find righteousness? Well, Romans 10 says, for Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness, the fulfilling of the law, the
perfection of the law, the finishing of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believe it. If you have eyes to see, ears
to hear, If you're a spiritual person that is born again by
the Spirit of God, you see and know and you love the fact that
Christ alone is your righteousness before God and you'll plead nothing
else. Like Paul said in Philippians
3, Oh, to know him and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith or
the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. That's it. And so he says, He
that is spiritual judges all things as to a right relationship
with God. Yet he himself is judged of no
man. The world, they may judge who they think is a Christian,
but they don't know. They don't have right judgment.
And so verse 16 says, for who hath known the mind of the Lord
that he may instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. Man
by nature doesn't know the mind of God. But when we're born again,
when God reveals Himself through His Word in Christ to a sinner,
then we have the mind of Christ. We know His mind. We know what
He thinks concerning this issue of salvation and how God saves
sinners. We're born again and we have
eyes to see and ears to hear. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1-1-0-2 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia 3-1-7-0-7. contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.theletterofgrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.