Born again, what does that mean? That's my subject this morning.
Do you know what it is to be born again? Let's read together
a portion of our Lord's discourse with Nicodemus in John chapter
3. John chapter 3 beginning at verse
1. There was a man of the Pharisees
named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. That is to say, a religious
ruler among the Jews, probably a member of the Sanhedrin. The
same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, 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. Our Lord
had just purged the temple. Perhaps Nicodemus was there.
More than likely, Nicodemus was there. And he stood by and watched
as our Lord in his fury drove the money changers and those
who sold oxen and doves and drove the ox and the doves out of the
temple. And he now comes and says, we
know. No man can do things you do,
except God be with him. Verse 3, Jesus answered and said
unto him, Nicodemus, you don't know anything. That's just exactly what he said.
Nicodemus, you don't know anything. Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
He cannot see, perceive, understand, know anything spiritual. Some of you are yet without life
in Christ and you like to talk about religious things. Your
opinion don't count. What you think you know is utter
ignorance. You don't know anything. 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? Of
course, Nicodemus is now being facetious. He's acting like a
cocky smart aleck, a religious smart aleck. You say, we must
be born again. What am I going to do, crawl
back in my mother's belly and come out again? What kind of
nonsense is that? But the Lord Jesus continues
with patience. He answered, Verily, verily,
truly, truly, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water
and of the spirit. Be born naturally and be born
spiritually. to be born by the natural process
of generation and by the spirit of God in the new generation. He cannot enter into the kingdom
of God. You've got to have a new nature
to be made fit to enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of
the flesh is flesh. And that which is born of the
spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee,
ye must be born again. 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. Now much has been said and written,
about Nicodemus coming to the Lord Jesus at night. And much
has been made of his coming at night, and I'll leave that alone.
Many debate as to whether Nicodemus ever was born again, though he
came among those with Joseph of Arimathea, begging the body
of the Lord that he might anoint it and prepare it for his burial.
And there are scholars who have written books about the meaning
of the word water in verse 5. I deliberately pass by those
things and I will make no comment because I want to focus your
attention this morning on the message that our Lord here conveys
to Nicodemus. Our Lord's message continues
to this day to be his message to all men who are naturally
without God and without Christ in this world. It is his message
to you and to me. Ye must be born again. Born again. I repeat, what does
that mean? These days, almost everyone talks
about being born again. Almost everyone uses religious
cliches that sound Christian. And because they have some association
with Christianity, folks will get real angry if any suggestion
is made that there's something other than Christian. But virtually
no one knows what the word of God teaches about the new birth. Therefore, I want to address
this subject as simply and with as clear and unmistakable terms
as I possibly can. When you leave here today, I
want you to understand what it is to be born again, and I want
more than that. I want you to leave here born
again, born of God. The religious world around us
in this apostate day when men everywhere reject the truth of
God has made the new birth to be nothing more than making a
decision, walking an aisle, and repeating a prayer that someone
has written out and they recite to you. I have been there, I
know. When I was seven years old, I
was scared into a profession of faith just as many of you
have been in your youth. I was scared to death of going
to hell, and the religious folks around me seized the opportunity
to squeeze a profession of faith out of a seven-year-old boy who
didn't have any idea what he ought to eat, much less any idea
about anything spiritual. I was scared, talked into a profession
of faith, followed the instructions that I was given. said the prayer
that I was told to say. And when I got done saying the
prayer, now, Don, you're saved. You've been born again. Everything's
all right. Don't let anybody ever tell you otherwise. Before
I was eight years old, I was going every Sunday afternoon
out to a black church out on the south side of Winston-Salem,
preaching at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Before I was nine
years old, I wasn't in church at all. And I had no more clue
what it was to be born again than I did before I ever went
to church the first time. Being born again is not walking
down a church aisle, shaking a preacher's hand, saying a scripted
prayer, and making your decision for Jesus. How many times do
you hear folks say, well, I've made my decision for the Lord.
He made his decision for the Lord such and such a time. Even
worse than that, many make the new birth less than that. They
make the new birth to be nothing more than being represented by
your parents or your guardian at the time you're presented
before a preacher in a church and they slosh a little water
on your head and call it baptism and you're brought into the church.
How many people there are, you hear them speak and they talk
about their relationship with God. They're religious. Been
religious all their lives. And they'll tell you, well, I
really don't remember a time when I didn't know God. I really
don't remember ever a time when I wasn't born again. I don't
ever remember not believing on Christ. Let me tell you something. If you don't ever remember not
believing Him, I dead sure am here to tell you, you don't believe
Him now. If you don't ever remember not
walking with Him, you're not walking with Him now. If you
don't ever remember not knowing him, you don't know him now. You must be born again. And this
message is as necessary and as urgent as ever it was, because
men misuse the term. When we talk about, well, he's
a born-again Christian, what other kind is there? What other
kind is there? He's a born-again baseball player.
He's a born-again football player. He's a born-again actor. We tend
not to use the term, and that ought never to be the case. This
is necessary. You must be born again. Some
of you have never made any profession of faith in Christ. You must be born again. Oh, you
must be born again. Some of you have been in church
many, many years, been members of this church, and you've heard
the gospel of God's grace year after year after year after year,
and yet you're without life and without faith in Christ. You
must be born again. That's my message to you today.
Look at these five words. in verse 7 and ask God to give
you wisdom and grace to understand what they mean. Here is a very
personal word, an intensely personal word. Ye. Ye. That's singular. You. You. I wish I could cause you to hear
me as if I just pulled up a chair and sat down right beside you
and it's just me and you talking. You. You must be born again. I know your moral, but that won't
put you in good standing with God. I know you're well instructed
in doctrine, but that won't do you any good before God. I know
you're religious, but that will be of no benefit to your soul.
You must be born again. Look at the next word. Oh, what
a pressing word this is. Must. Must. What will it profit a man if
he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Every adult in this building,
will say amen to that question. What should it profit a man if
he gained the whole world and lose his own soul? And every
adult in this building who has children of his own is guilty
of raising them as though that weren't the case. Me, more guilty than anyone. from their infancy. We teach
our sons and daughters the importance of getting a good education,
the importance of choosing the right companions, the importance
of marrying one who will worship God with you, a girl marrying
a man who will take care of her, a man marrying a woman who will
be a good wife to him, the importance of finding a good job and settling
in a good place, in a good neighborhood to raise your children. Word
to God! We make them to understand this
is the one thing needful. You must be born again. You must be born again. The next word is a passive word. Be. The new birth is not something
you do. I'm not here to tell you how
to be born again. In fact, I'll make a suggestion
to you when you walk through these religious idol shops, religious
trinket shops called Christian bookstores, where they sell nothing
but religious trinkets, and you see books that are how-to books,
just ignore them. Don't pick them up. Don't look
at them. How to, how to, how to be born again. Anybody who
tells you how to be born again doesn't have a clue of what the
new birth is. How to be born again? No. This
is passive. It's not something you do. It
is something that is done to you and for you and in you by
God's grace. And if God does not birth you
into his kingdom, you're not coming into his kingdom. If God
leaves you to yourself, you will go to hell. If God Almighty does
not interfere with your life, you will perish in your sins.
Our sons and daughters we bring before God. You who are our joy
as a family. We plead with you, but we plead with God for you.
You must be born again. New birth isn't something that's
accomplished by moral reformation or by baptism. It's not accomplished
by religious fervor and devotion or religious training, not even
by faith in Christ. Faith in Christ is not the cause
of the new birth. It is the result of the new birth.
We believe according to the working of God's mighty power, that very
same power he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead.
You must be born again. Martin Luther said, if any man
ascribes anything of salvation, even the very least thing, to
the free will of man, he knows nothing of grace. The new birth
is not your decision. It's not your choice. It's not
your work. It's not your operation. It is
God's work and God's operation in you by His grace. Look at
this next word. What a powerful word. Born. Every year along about Christmas
time, Preachers on television compare God's salvation to a
gift. I heard one last year, maybe
the year before, I can't remember. He said, every year after Christmas,
there's always a gift still under the tree. It was purchased and
wrapped and prepared for someone who wasn't there to take the
gift. And so it just sits and waits
until they come around and then the gift is presented to them
personally. But they must open the gift. Oh, isn't that sweet? Isn't that
wonderful? Except for being blasphemy, I
reckon. The new birth is not that kind of gift. The new birth
is the gift of God wrought in you. You have no more to do with
your second birth than with your first. You have no more to do
with being born of God's Spirit than you do being born of your
mother. The new birth is something God does for you. You must be
born again. Now, look at this next word,
again. What a profound word. The word
means you must be born a second time. Certainly it means that.
Your first birth was of sinful parents and you were born in
their image. Your second birth is of God and
you're born in his image. Your first birth was of corruptible
seed, the second of incorruptible seed. Our first birth is in sin. Our new birth is in righteousness. Our first birth causes us to
be polluted and unclean. The second birth makes us clean
and holy. Our first birth was fleshly and
carnal. Our second, spiritual, making
us spiritual. The first birth brings forth men who are foolish
and ignorant. By our second birth, we are made
wise unto salvation. But the word again means something
other than a second time. This word again means from above. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
you must be born from above. James tells us, every good and
perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of
lights. With him is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. And
then in the very next verse, he tells us what he's talking
about. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth.
We are born the second time from above, not by something natural,
not by a natural process, but by the work of God from above. You must be begotten again because
you were begotten the first time in an altogether bad way. Our
Lord says you must be born again because you cannot enter into
the kingdom of heaven without being born again. Because you
cannot be saved without the new birth. The new birth is as essential
to our salvation as is righteousness and redemption. In order for
you to enter into God's everlasting glory, in order for me to enter
there and be saved, two things must happen to us. Something
must be done for us, and something must be done in us. We must be
made righteous judicially, and we must be made righteous inwardly. We must be redeemed, having the
righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and we must be regenerated,
having the righteousness of Christ imparted to us, created in us
in the new birth. Both are works of God. Man has
nothing to do with either salvation is of the Lord. Now let me try
to answer four questions about the new birth. Four questions,
and answer them very simply. Number one, why? Why must we
be born again? The scriptures give us numerous
answers. But in this third chapter of John's Gospel, we have three
answers specifically given to that question. Unless you're
born again, You can't see the kingdom of God. You see that
in verse 3? You can't see it. You can't see it. You can't understand
anything spiritual. The carnal mind is enmity against
God. And that mind that hates God
hates God because it understands nothing of God. The carnal mind
cannot know anything spiritual. Paul tells us the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for the foolishness
to it. Neither can he know them because
they're spiritually discerned. Nothing. Nothing. The natural
man has lots of religious opinions. And he's not at all bashful about
telling you his opinions. But the natural man, it matters
not how well educated he is. It matters not how well learned
he is. It matters not what creeds he
has learned and can recite forward and backward. The natural man
has absolutely no spiritual perception. He understands not the things
of the Spirit of God. No point in trying to reason
with a natural man. He can't be reasoned with about
these things. There's no point in trying to argue him into the
kingdom of God. It can't be done. All you can
do is argue him into some position of natural reason. The natural
man can't see the kingdom of God. Nothing. He doesn't see
himself. He doesn't know the condition
of his own heart. You can talk to him about it. You can talk
to him about it until you both leave this world. He'll never
know the plague of his own heart. He'll never know. Talk to him
about God's salvation by Christ Jesus. He can't grasp it. He just can't grasp it. Talk
to him about redemption through Christ our substitute, the necessity
for it, the necessity for it. He just can't grasp it. He can't see the gospel of God's
free grace. Second, in verse 5, not only
can you not see it, Until you're born again, you can't enter the
kingdom of God. You can reform your life. You
can be baptized. You can join the church. And
you can be zealous without the new birth. You can be a devoted
church member without the new birth. You can be a morally upright
religious person with great religious principles without the new birth. How often do you find folks who
will talk to you about someone's, well, that person, you know they're
going to heaven? Look what kind of life they lived.
Look what kind of life they lived. Shelby and I, as many of you
have, been somewhat influenced by the former White House Press
Secretary Tony Snow. Everybody talking about what
a good man he is. What a good man he is. Being
good to men and before men merits you nothing from God. Now Skip Gladfelter, not Don
Fortner. Nothing. I never knew anybody
as good as my grandmother. I know she's in heaven. That
doesn't tell me a thing about her being in heaven. Not one
thing. Not one thing. You can be a devoted
religious leader and not be born of God. You can be a teacher,
a preacher, a missionary. Mother Teresa in Calcutta, oh,
what good she did. She did. I will never, never
question that. Did much good that continues
to this day. But doing good doesn't mean you
know God. Doesn't mean you know God. There
were multitudes who walked on this earth who did good and didn't
know God during our Lord's days. Multitudes who walked on this
earth who did good before men and didn't know God throughout
the Old Testament. The new birth is something wrought
in you without which you cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
You'll never be a part of the church and family of God until
you're born again. You'll never have eternal life
until you're born again. You will never enter into the
worship and fellowship of God's saints until you're born again.
You will never be admitted into the presence of God in glory
and the bliss of heaven's everlasting glory until you're born again.
Hold your hands here in John 3 and turn to the book of Revelation.
Let me show you. John 3. I'm sorry, Revelation
20, verse 6. Blessed and holy is he that hath
part in the first resurrection. Now, Bobby, that's what the new
birth is. It's the first resurrection. The first resurrection is a spiritual
resurrection. It assures us of the second resurrection, which
is the resurrection of our bodies. Blessed and holy is he that hath
part in the first resurrection. On such the second death hath
no power. If you're born again, if you've
been resurrected from the dead, raised up from your grace, as
we read in Ezekiel 37, you cannot perish. The second death has
no power on you. But they shall be priests of
God and of Christ and shall reign with Him a thousand years. The word thousand being put for
forever. Chapter 21 of Revelation, verse
27. And there shall in no wise enter
into the city. There shall in no wise enter
into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination,
or maketh a lie, but they which are written in the Lamb's book
of life. Only new creatures will enter
the new Jerusalem. Only holy men and women will
walk in the holy city. Only heaven-born citizens will
possess the bliss of heaven. Back here in John 3, verse 6. You must be born again because
except you're born again, you can't see the kingdom of God.
Except you're born again, you can't enter the kingdom of God.
And you must be born again because by nature You're fallen, depraved,
sinful, a child of flesh. Verse 6, that which is born of
the flesh is flesh. Caroline Rutland, you got one
thing from your daddy for dead sure, sin. And Todd, you've given your children
that one thing, just sin. See, that which is born of the
flesh is just flesh. Carnal. Corrupt and corrupting. That's our nature, Larry. Corrupt
and corrupting. Flesh. Just flesh. Just flesh. passed on from one
man to another, generation after generation after generation since
the sin and fall of our father Adam. Why was Adam's firstborn
son a murdering rebel? Because he came from a murdering
rebel. That's why. All right, here's the second
question. What is the new birth? I can't explain the mystery of
the new birth. It's one of God's incomprehensible
works. But there are several things
in the Word of God that identify it. To be born again is to be raised
from the dead. You hath He quickened who were
dead in trespasses and in sins. I've already read you Revelation
20 verse 6, the new birth being compared to the first resurrection.
To be born again is to be lifted up from the pit of corruption,
from the pit of death, from the pit of damnation, to be raised
up from death by God Almighty. It is to have the Lord God Himself
breathe life into your soul. To be born again is to be made
a partaker of the divine nature. That's what Peter tells us in
2 Peter 1, verse 4. It is to have Christ formed in
you. It's to have a new nature created in your soul so that
living upon this earth, you live as one born in the image of God
and you bear God's image. To have eternal life is to have
Christ Himself living in you. I am crucified with Christ, Paul
said. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith, that is, by the faithful obedience
of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I'm
living here, but the man who's living here is not the one you're
looking at. This body merely represents that
carnal nature that resides in me, and it's just a temporary
house. The real man. That man who lives
deep inside is the Son of God Himself, made partakers of the
divine nature. To be born again is to have a
good seed implanted in you by grace, the very nature of Christ. Turn to 1 John chapter 3. By nature we're all sprung from
bad seed, Adam. In regeneration, we're sprung
from good seed, Christ Jesus the Lord. If any man be in Christ,
he's a new creature. He's got a new heart with which
to love God, a new mind with which to understand the things
of God, a new will bent toward God. He's a new creature. 1 John chapter 3 verse 9, Whosoever
is born of God doth not sin. Ever. Ever. Ron Paul said, when I sin,
it's not me. It's sin dwelling in me. That
which is born of God does not sin. That new man in us does
not sin. For his seed remaineth in him,
and he cannot sin. Not if he's born of God. No.
If this thing in you is born of God, it can't sin. In this,
the children of God are manifest in the children of the devil.
Whatsoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that
loveth not his brother. Third, how are men and women
born again? Turn back to the opening chapter
in Scripture, Genesis chapter 1. How are men and women born
again? Our Lord told Nicodemus the wind
bloweth where it listeth. You hear the sound of it, but
you can't tell where it came from or where it's going. So
is everyone that is born of the Spirit. The new birth, then,
is the accomplishment of God's sovereign will in the sovereign
disposition of His sovereign Spirit. He gives life to whom
He will. Moral reason can't produce life
in man. Eloquence and logic can't produce
life. We can tell emotional stories
and stir people's emotions, but it'll never give them life. We
can talk folks into making a profession of faith. I've told you many
times, the first year or so I was here, I've forgotten, maybe two
years, all the churches got together and they called and wanted me
to join them. They had a big hoopla at the high school in
Boyle County, and they showed a movie. called the burning hell
and scared the hell out of everybody. Kids everywhere made a profession
of faith. Scared to death of going to hell. Didn't do a thing
except scare folks. No religious, no spiritual good
done? None whatsoever. None whatsoever. All they did was make them two-fold
more the child of hell, assuring them that they were saved when
they had no knowledge of the living God. None whatever. I lay that charge at the foot
of every church door and every preacher in this county. Every
one of them. Every one of them. God's free
grace testifies otherwise. The new birth cannot be accomplished
by anything short of the moving of God's Spirit upon your soul.
Let me give you three or four pictures of it here in Genesis
chapter one. In the beginning, God created
the heaven and the earth, just as he created Adam in his
image and after his likeness. And the earth became, that word
was is properly translated became. Something happened. Something
happened. without form and void. Perhaps this refers to Satan's
fall, I don't know. Something happened and darkness
was upon the face of the deep. That's what happened to Lindsey
Campbell in the garden. That's what happened to the human
race in the garden. Through the sin and fall of our
father Adam, we became empty, meaningless, void, chaos, and
nothing but darkness in the depths of our souls. Then the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters, and everything changed. God said, let there
be light, and there was light. I have another picture. In Ezekiel
16, you don't need to turn there, you're familiar with it, the
Lord describes His people as an infant cast out from its mother's
womb, naked, polluted in its own blood, dead and rotting,
cast aside as an aborted child that was unwanted by anyone and
no one to care for it, no one to clean it, no one to wash it,
no one to even prepare it for a burial, just throw away as
useless waste. But he said, I passed by you.
And behold, your time was the time of love. And I spread my
skirt over you. And I said to you, live. And
you became mine. That's what God did for my soul.
In Ezekiel 37, that valley of dry bones, God said to his prophet,
prophesy to these bones. He said, can these bones live?
The prophet said, Lord, you know. I don't. Can these bones live? Can you
live before God? Is it possible that you can live
before God? I don't know. But God does prophesy
to these bones. And so I prophesied to the bones.
And I said to the bones, live. Live. And I stirred the bones,
but nothing happened, just a stirring and a rattling of the bones.
And he says, Son of man, prophesy to the wind. Come, O four winds,
come, O breath of God, and breathe upon these slain. And the wind
came, and flesh came upon them, and breath came upon them. And
there stood a mighty army. That's what it takes for you
to be born again. For God himself to come upon
you and in you. Lazarus had been dead for four
days. Four days. And he hadn't been pickled with
embalming fluid. Just wrapped and put in the tomb.
His flesh had begun to rot. Nobody wanted to be around him.
There was a stone rolled over the mouth of his tomb because
his rotting flesh was stinking. That's a pretty good picture
of you. Dead. rotten, stinking. And the Lord Jesus came and commanded
that they roll away the stones. And he said, Lazarus, come forth! And he that was dead came forth. How come Because God, the Word,
spoke His Word in the heart of the dead man. And that dead man
had no power with which to resist the Word and the will of the
omnipotent Savior. Oh, Son of God, will you speak
the Word and cause the dead to live? One more question. You may say, well, Pastor, when
is the sinner born again? Now, lots of folks would have
you to look back to yesterday, or to 20 years ago, or to your
childhood, or to some religious experience. Somewhere over at the house or
here somewhere, in one of the file cabinets somewhere, I have
a birth certificate. And it avows that I was born
June 10, 1950, in Bladen County, North Carolina. Has the name
of my mother and daddy and other siblings listed on the birth
certificate. That is a legal document declaring
that I was born. Should I carry my birth certificate
to the doctor? I've got to go see my doctor
Tuesday. And he wants to take my pulse. That's no need. I've
got my birth certificate. That doctor might do what folks
have been threatening to do all my life. He might send me to
the funny farm. What kind of fool are you? If
you've got to look back to yesterday to know whether or not you're
born of God, you're not born of God. When is a person born again?
When you know Christ. Do you know Him? This is life
eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God and Jesus
Christ whom Thou hast sent. When you believe on Christ, you're
born again. But pastor, you've told us already
that our faith doesn't cause us to be born again. That's not
what I said. I said when you believe, you are. He that believeth
on the Son of God hath everlasting life. How many of you have come
to me and expressed it one way or another, this is what you
said. Don, something strange has happened to me. I find myself believing. I can't help it. I just believe
Him. I didn't the other day, but now
I do. I believe Him. When you find yourself believing
on the Son of God, you have everlasting life. You've been born of God. When you have Christ, you have the new birth. that hath the Son hath life. No matter what he doesn't have,
and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life, no matter
what else he may have. Come, O four winds, O Spirit
of God, and breathe upon thee slain. that they may live. Amen.