Turn to John chapter 3. John chapter 3. I titled this message, How Can
These Things Be? One of the most educated men
in Israel asked this question. A ruler of Israel, a teacher,
an instructor, who ought to have known the answer, Nicodemus. He studied the Word of God daily. How many times Did this man read
Ezekiel 36, a new heart will I give you, a new spirit, and
I'll put my spirit within you? How many times did that man read the Word of God and still missed
it? He completely missed it, and
the reason he missed it is because he's lost. He had no light, no
understanding. The light that he had, the light
that was in him was darkness. He came to our Lord at night to ask him some questions. He
had seen some miracles, and he was really impressed, and I believe
he was really sincere. He was impressed at what he witnessed,
and he was impressed with the Lord. No man can do these things
except God be with him. And so he had an opportunity
at this time, at nighttime, and why it came at night, I don't
know. I've heard different things, but he came. I don't care if
it was night or day, he came. The man came, and he came to
Christ, and he came to talk to him. And I think he had a lot
of things on his mind. He probably had several questions
on his mind. But the Lord stopped him. You see, this man was educated
in the word of God, a teacher, and so he came to Christ at night,
and he had a lot of things he wanted to ask him. And the Lord
stopped him. He stopped him because he knew
that Nicodemus could not, he could not understand or comprehend
the answer that he would give him. He says, and we'll see this
in a minute, but he says, if you can't understand earthly
examples, how are you going to understand the heavenly truths?
And so our Lord stops him. And he tells this religious man,
very religious man, this instructor, you know, he'd be the one standing
in the pulpit instructing, teaching. How dangerous is that? I don't think anybody can be
more dangerous than a man who stands behind a pulpit and does
not know what's going on. He said, you are a teacher of
Israel and you don't know these things? How can God be a just God and
a Savior? How can I stand before God righteous? How can these things be? How
can I, being a sinful man, stand before God justified? How can
these things be? Well, he's looking at the one. The only way it can be is through
the one he's speaking to, through his blood, through his righteousness,
through Christ himself, the Son of God. That's the only way we
can be justified. That's the only way we can be
accepted. That's the only way we can be righteous. And to understand
these things, there has to be A new creation. There has to
be a new birth. And he tells Nicodemus, he said,
you must be born again. Now, it's evident that Nicodemus
understood something about a natural birth. But he could not translate
that into a spiritual birth. The Lord gave him an example, a natural example. You
must be born again. And he said, how can a man when
he's old go back to the womb and be born again? So he understands,
you know, people understand what it means to be born. They understand
what a birth means. You know, if one of you ladies,
when you ladies were giving birth to these children, we said, you
know, they gave birth to a baby boy this morning or a baby girl.
Everyone in here understands that. But when we talk about being
born again, It's complicated. Well, it's not complicated, but
men complicate it. Anytime you start trying to use
human logic, you see, Nicodemus starts to try, he starts trying
to use human logic. Now, if I'm going to be born
again, you mean I've got to go back, and I'm an old man, and
I've got to go back to my mother's womb and be born a second time? If you did, you'd still be just
as rotten. I got a phone call over that on the radio. I told her, I said, in a message
about just preaching on the new birth. I said, if you could go
back and be born the second time, you know, from your mother's
womb, you'd be just as bad as ever. I had a man call me over
that. He said, no, I wouldn't. He said,
you know, you know better. You know, he's saying he believed
the gospel and God had saved him. He said, if I go back and
do things over, oh boy, you don't understand the gospel. You go
back again, you do the same thing. If you didn't do the same thing,
you'd just be so self-righteous we couldn't stand you. It would
be one or the other. You'd be either so rotten or
you'd be so self-righteous that no one could stand to be around
you. It takes a new birth. It's not that which is born of
the flesh. It's flesh. It never changes. Why do you have to whip your
kids or you're chasing your kids? I guess you're going to use that
word whipping more. But you have to chase your kids. You know
why you have to do that? It's flesh. Flesh is flesh. It is what it is. And you've
got to discipline it again and again and again. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh, and it doesn't get any better. You know, the new
birth is not a process of reformation. It's not that at all. It's not
the approving of the old nature. It is the real, literal creation
of a new man in Christ. It's a new creation. A new creation. See, my first birth, was full
of sin. I received from my dad all that
he is, and him from his dad, all the way back to Adam. And
whatever genetic defects he and mom may have, I'm sure it's passed
on to me. And I've passed it on to my sons.
And that's all I can do. But now that which is born of
the Spirit is spirit. There's no sin in it. There can
be no sin in it. It's of God. Flesh has nothing
to do with it. It's all of God. That which is
born of the Spirit is, He doesn't say spiritual, though it is,
it is Spirit. It is Spirit. So our Lord stops him, Nicodemus,
and He tells him he must be born again. But verse 8 here, our
Lord And speaking to Nicodemus, let's go to verse 7. That's where
I really wanted to start at. He says to Nicodemus, marvel
not, and I'm sure he was puzzled. Nicodemus, he had to have this
puzzled, confused look on his face. Like, I don't know what
you're talking about. Have you ever been in class and
the teacher's giving a question and you just look like a deer
caught in the headlights? You just don't know what they're
talking about. Nicodemus, he's got this puzzled look on his
face. And he's just like, it's marvelous. What kind of teaching
is this? I've never heard this before.
I mean, this man's been teaching Bible lessons and Bible classes
for a long time. And he said, I've never heard
such a thing. And our Lord said, marvel not that I said unto thee,
you must be born again. Nicodemus, I didn't give you
something to do. You say, well, if I've got to
be born again, then tell me how to do it. And that's where the
Armenians come in. They say, well, well, if you
accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior, then you'll be born again.
No, you won't. No, you won't. Accepting Christ as my savior
is not the cause of a new birth. The cause of a new birth is the
love and grace of God, the power of God and the word of God. I didn't do anything. I had nothing
to do with my first birth. I had nothing to do with it.
Totally passive in it. And he tells Nicodemus, don't
marvel at this. And I said to thee, you must
be born again. He said, the wind blows where
it listeth, that is, where it wills. And our Lord is going
to point out the sovereignty of God in salvation. He's going to point this out,
and he's going to use the wind as an example. No one controls
the wind. No one but God. Only God. The wind is totally beyond human
strength. We are absolutely helpless before
the wind. If God sends a hurricane, We
cannot stop it. There's no way we can stop it.
And he says the wind blows where it wills or where it listeth.
It blows when it will, where it will, as strong as it will,
and we can do nothing about it. Even so is the Spirit of God,
Nicodemus. This matter of the new birth,
Nicodemus, is not in your hands. It's in the hands of Almighty
God. It's in His hands. And it's sovereign. The Word of God teaches us that
He saves whom He will. Do you know anyone better to
do that than God? If He did not save, sovereignly
save, there would be no one saved. I mean absolutely no one would
be saved. No one naturally loves God. No
one will naturally come to Christ. Christ said, you will not come
to me that you might have light. You won't do it. Why? You love darkness rather than
light. And he's talking about every
last one of us by nature. Our will is not to follow after
Him, it's to go away from Him. It's the opposite. And so what he demonstrates here
by the wind is that God is sovereign. He saves whom He will. He saves
them when He will, where He will, and no one has control over that
but God Almighty. And men will not worship God
until they come to realize that he is the sovereign. It's not
a cooperative effort. It's not God and me cooperating
with each other. It's God saving the sinner by
his power. He commands light and life. He doesn't ask me if I want light
or life. He commands it. You don't ask
a dead body if they want to come back to life. You don't ask dead
people anything. We are, by nature, spiritually dead. And I mean dead. Now, we're not
physically dead. We have this natural life, but
we are spiritually dead. We do not have the life of God
in us naturally. That comes by a new creation.
That comes by the power of God. Just like you go back to Genesis
and you read, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the
earth. That same power that created the heavens and the earth is
the same power that God uses in creating a sinner, a new man,
a new birth. And he uses his word. His word
is the seed. There is a seed in every birth. And the seed in this new birth
is the word of God. How important is this word? You
cannot be saved without it. It's the seed. You cannot be
born again without it. It's the seed. It's the seed. Now, he said in verse 9, Nicodemus
asked this question, How can these things be? Here is a teacher
of Israel. a student of the Scriptures,
and he does not know the ABCs of spiritual life." Totally ignorant
puppet. But at least he was honest. At
least the man was honest and he said, how can these things,
how can these things be? Don't ever be embarrassed to
ask, Because I'm one of these, when I was in school I'd never
ask, I wouldn't raise my hand for nothing. If I had to cheat
sheets I wouldn't, I wouldn't raise my hand. I didn't want
to be called on. But don't ever be embarrassed
to ask about what you don't know. I think too many let pride get
in the way and they leave ignorant when they could have learned
something. They could have learned something. Elihu said this in
Job 34, What I see not, teach thou me. What I see not, teach
me. Give me understanding. And the
Lord said to him, he replied to Nicodemus, Art thou a teacher
of Israel? You are a teacher of Israel,
and yet you do not know these things? Are these spiritual truths
strange to you? They shouldn't be. They shouldn't
be. You know, it's one thing to be
ignorant, but to be ignorant and to be a teacher, someone
said, that's a crime. That ought to be a crime. The Lord said, Nicodemus, you
don't know these things. You study the Scriptures. You
read, like I said, Ezekiel 36, a new heart will I give you,
and you don't understand what I'm talking about. The very fact
that Nicodemus, a ruler in Israel, a teacher, the very fact that
he did not understand what our Lord was talking about proves
the necessity of a new birth. You cannot understand these things.
If God doesn't give us a light, if He doesn't give us understanding,
life, if He doesn't give us these things, the Bible is a closed
book. And it will mean no more to you
than reading Shakespeare. You'd probably get more out of
Shakespeare than you would get out of this. He said, Nicodemus, you're a
teacher of Israel and you don't know these things? That's a shame.
That ought to be a crime. It doesn't matter how religious
a man is, how moral a man is, unless God gives him spiritual
light, he cannot see or understand because the light that is in
him is darkness. I don't know of any worse way
to be and to be religious but lost. Paul speaks of that over in Romans
10. Look over in Romans chapter 10. He says in verse 1, Brethren, my heart's desire And prayer
to God for Israel is that they might be saved. They're lost. They are lost. For I bear them record. They
have a zeal of God, but not according to none. They're zealous. The
Apostle Paul was zealous. He went about trying to kill
the church. I mean, he was trying to stamp
it out. thinking he was doing God a favor. Zealous, but the
man was lost as lost can be. And I don't know any worse way
to be lost, if there is a worse way to be lost, it would be being
religious and lost. How many are going to stand before
the Lord, he said, the Lord said? They will stand before Him and
say, we preached in your name? We cast out devils in your name. We did many mighty works in your
name. And the Lord says to them, depart
from me, I never knew you. No worse way to be than that. Our Lord says, we speak what
we know, that is, what is truth, what we know, as opposed to false
religion that speaks of things they know nothing of. Our Lord
said to this woman at the well, he says here, you worship in
verse 22 in John chapter 4. Let me read verse 21. Jesus said
unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall
neither in this mountain nor at Jerusalem worship the Father.
No, we worship Him in the heart. We worship Him in Christ. We're
not worshiping Him in a place. We're worshiping Him from the
heart in Christ. And He says to this woman, you
worship. You don't know what? You don't
know what you're doing. You do not. He said to her, saying
to her, you do not know what you're doing. You don't even
know Who or what you're worshipping. You're just going through a ceremony.
You're going through a religious service. And he could say that because
she wasn't worshipping him. She didn't know him. If you don't
know Christ, there's no worship in it. There's no worship in
it. But the Lord says, we worship what we know. Christ is saying
to Nicodemus, we know absolutely. what we're talking about. Nicodemus
thought the new birth was impossible. But Christ says, we have actually
seen what we're talking about. We know what we're talking about.
And you receive not our witness. To receive not the witness of
God is to receive not His Word. The reason man does not know
the things of God is because he receives not the witness of
God, which is the Word of God. Here's how it works. Here's how
it works. Receiving, then knowing. Believing what God has said,
then understanding. You say, that's the total reverse.
That's the reverse of things. David said, I had fainted unless
I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the
living. There's a lot of things I don't
understand. I don't read in the Word of God, but based on God's
Word, I believe what He says. I believe it. I haven't seen
heaven, but I believe it is. I believe it's so. I have not
seen Jesus Christ. I believe He's as real as you
and I. I have not seen God. Have you seen God? Not with these
eyes you haven't. By faith we see Him. By faith
we look to Him. And He's real to us. And the more you believe, He
said, the more we believe, the more light will be given. Walk
in the lights that you have, and more light will be given.
Well, you're not going to walk in if you don't believe it. It
has to do with faith. Hebrews 11.3, we looked at this
not too long ago. Through faith, we understand. Through faith, we perceive. Faith is the root, it's the perception. As we believe God's Word, He
honors our faith by giving us a knowledge of what we believe. But if you believe not His Word,
you'll never understand the gospel, you'll never embrace it. You'll never embrace it. You remember with Peter, I believe
it was Peter and an apostle there, they were fished all night. Fished
all night. They caught nothing. They caught
nothing. And they toiled and worked hard
that night. And that's all night. Everybody
goes to bed. I mean, it was daytime. That's tiring. And the Lord said,
cast your net on the other side there. Just throw your net out
there. And they're like, Lord, we've fished here all night.
There's nothing here. Nevertheless, at Your Word, Nevertheless, at your word, they
let down the net. And, boy, did they have a catch.
The net was so full it began to break. Now, Peter didn't say, Now, Lord,
explain to me. Explain to me what you're talking
about because, you know, we've been here all night. We've been
here all night. Explain to me how this can happen. No, they said this, nevertheless
at your word. The understanding we have has
been given to us through faith, through believing God. Those who do not believe, they'll
never understand. They'll never understand no matter
how plain you make it. Our Lord said in verse 12, if
I have told you earthly things and you believe not, you don't
believe, you can't comprehend through these earthly examples,
how are you going to believe heavenly things? You know, Paul
said he went to the third heaven. He saw and heard things that
was not lawful to utter. That isn't, he doesn't mean that
it was wrong to utter it or it's against the law. He said, there's
no word, there's no, I don't have a vocabulary for it. There's no words in the human
language to explain what I witnessed. If I told you these earthly things
and you believe not, you can't comprehend it. If I tell you what I know, if
I just give you heavenly things, there's no way you're going to
believe that. If I speak to you in human language,
simple illustrations, and you can't comprehend what I'm talking
about, you can't believe the heavenly truths, that's for sure.
You can't comprehend them. God will not reveal higher truths,
someone said to us, if we do not thoroughly apprehend and
believe the simple ones. The simple ones. That's why he said, walk in the
light that you have, and he'll give you more light. Earthly things are comprehensible,
but heavenly things are invisible and beyond our grasp. And that being so, there has
to be a divine work of grace in There has to be a powerful
work of Almighty God in us. There has to be a new man, a
new creation that can receive these things. You see, to the
natural man it's foolishness, but to the man that's born of
God, you say, I see. I understand. I understand how
God can be a just God and a Savior. I understand how these things
can be. I understand how I can stand
before God righteous in Christ. I understand that. Even though
it's still over your head. But you still have a comprehension
of it. You have a comprehension of it. An understanding. The
Son of God has come and given us an understanding that we may
know Him that is true. And that's given in the new birth.
That's not given all at once. We grow in grace and knowledge
of Him like a child. You know, a child comes into
this world, they got a lot to learn. And so do we. We have a lot to learn in Christ.
I tell you this, I do believe this. I believe that throughout
eternity we will be forever learning of God. He's infinite. If He were finite,
we would finally learn Him. Wouldn't we? If He were finite
like us, we would finally know what He knows. Know everything
He knows. If He's the Teacher, but we will
spend eternity learning of Him who's infinite in wisdom and
knowledge and power and holiness. Eternal education. Always knowing
Him. We can't go... That's, you know,
just saying that is just... I'm thinking, am I confusing
everybody? Because I know that's way over
our head. That's way over my head. But if it's infinite, it
can't be measured. It cannot be completely known.
It's forever knowing. Forever knowing. And our Lord says to him, verse 13, no one has ascended
to heaven, He that came down from heaven, there is one who
came down from heaven. No one ever ascended to heaven
by their own power, except one. And it's the same one that came
down from heaven, the Son of Man, and he gives Nicodemus, he gives
him a glimpse through the lattice of his deity. The Son of Man who is in heaven,
not going back to heaven, but in heaven. As the Son walked upon this earth,
the Son of God, as He walked upon this earth, at the same
time, He was in the bosom of the Father. He's God. He is Almighty God. No man ascended to heaven. Some
were taken there, but the Son of God came down from heaven.
He came down to redeem us, to redeem us, justify us, make
us righteous, and take us back home. Now he says in verse 14, I'll
wind this up. And as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, he's going to give another earthly illustration
here. See, the first time he spoke
of the wind and the new birth and Nicodemus was like, how can
these things be? Now he's going to talk about
something that Nicodemus knows something about, that serpent
on the pole. And Moses and those people that were bitten. Now
Nicodemus, I know you've read this a lot. He knows Nicodemus. And then he says here in verse
14, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, remember the
people murmured? They were murmuring and complaining
against the light bread. And we looked at the manna and
God sent those serpents in there. And they were poisonous and they
bit the people. People were dying. He told Moses to put a serpent
of brass upon a pole. And he walked through the midst
of the congregation. And as he walked through the
midst of that congregation, he was crying out, Look! Look! And those who looked lived. Nicodemus, you know something
about that? You remember that scripture, Nicodemus? As Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
Son of Man be lifted up, just like that, in the same manner. That serpent came in there, bit
those people, and they died. Many of them died. Satan came
in the garden. He bit our parents. And they
died, spiritually. And then, that's why we die physically. In a little while, we'll die
physically, too, because of sin. Those who looked to that serpent
on the pole that Moses carried through the camp, lived. And
those who didn't, died. Christ in our nature was crucified. And as we proclaim Christ and
Him crucified, And we proclaim to sinners, look. God said in
Isaiah, look unto me and live. Look unto me, all the ends of
the earth for I am God and there is none else. And that's what
we cry. We cry the same thing Moses cried.
Look. Look unto Christ. Look unto Him
and live. And those who look, those who
look live. Those who didn't died. And as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
He must be. Nobody is going to be saved without
it. Not one person was ever saved apart from Christ and Him crucified. Christ and His blood. Christ
and His righteousness. No one. No one. that whosoever believeth in him."
That's what looking is. Faith is looking to Christ. Looking
to Christ is faith. It's not the straining of my
eyes trying to see Him. It's faith. It's faith looking
to Him. That whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have eternal life. Oh, whosoever will, look. If
you've been bitten, look. Look to Him. Look to the Lamb
of God. And the end of faith, the end
of looking to Christ, is eternal life. It's eternal life. That's what I want. That's what
I want for you. Eternal life. That's different
than living somewhere eternally. We are going to live somewhere
eternally. We're not going to cease to exist like an animal.
But I'm not wanting to live somewhere eternally. I want eternal life.
Eternal life is the life of God. And that's what you got if you
have Him. the life of God in the soul.