John chapter 3, and let's begin
reading in verse 1 and down through verse 21. I'll have to confess that I have preached on this
third chapter so many times, and if there's anybody here this
morning saying our pastor hasn't grown a bit, I'll confess it.
I'll confess it. I can't get past some of these
things. I try to look at them from a different angle, but I
can't leave them. I love the new birth. Ever since
I've trusted, I've experienced it, and that's what I want to
look at again this morning and again this afternoon. Here in
verse 1, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a
ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night
and said unto him, We know that you are a teacher come from God. For no man can do these miracles,
these signs, these wonders that you're doing, except God be with
him. Jesus answered and said unto
him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said unto him,
How can a man be born when he is old? It seemed like he was
probably there. Can he enter the second time
into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Except a man be born of water and of
the Spirit, he cannot enter into 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 say unto you,
you must be born again. The wind blows where it will,
where it wishes, where it listens. And you hear the sound thereof,
but you cannot tell from whence it cometh and whither it goeth.
So is every one that is born of the Spirit. And Nicodemus
answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered
and said unto him, Are you a master, are you a teacher of Israel,
and know not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto you,
We speak that we do know. We testify what we have seen,
and you receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things
and you believe not, how shall you believe if I tell you of
heavenly things? And no man has ascended up to
heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of
Man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish. but have eternal
life. For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son
unto the world to condemn the world, but that the world through
Him might be saved. He that believes on Him is not
condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because
he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
And this is the condemnation, that light is coming to the world,
and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds
were evil. For everyone that doeth evil,
he hates the light. Neither comes to the light lest
his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth, he comes
to the light. that his deeds may be made manifest,
that they are wrought in God. And that's the reading of this
wonderful story. And I wish that you and I could
not be so indifferent to it. And some of these old stories
that we read in the Bible, because they're true, these are true
stories. And I realize that now as we
read them, We read them to learn from them. That's our chief reason
for reading these stories, is to learn from them. But don't
you wish that as you read these stories, you could get excited
about reading them? Because these stories really
happened. These things are true, and especially
this story. Here we have this man, a religious
man, a popular man, maybe a famous man among his clique, his brothers. And he comes here to the Lord
Jesus Christ. Can you imagine this man doing
this? And he comes at night. He slips
away at night and he comes and it's not like They are here in
some seminar setting that you have the teacher up teaching
and the students are there with their notepads taking notes.
This is in the dark hours of the night. These two men are
sitting, one a very religious man and Jesus of Nazareth, who
never went to their school, the Son of God come down from heaven.
And there they sit over a candlelight. or a lamp, and the shadows on
the walls. And the Lord tells this man.
He preaches the gospel unto this man. I wish that we could look at
this and be excited every time that we read it. Because it's
so real. I'm not for sure here in verse
4 of Nicodemus' motives in asking this question. Theologians have
wondered about this and wondered what he really meant. Was it
out of contempt? Was he frustrated when he asked
this question? When he said, can a mother enter
the second time into his mother's womb and be born? How was that
question asked? Did he ask it like this? Are
you telling me that a man has to go back into his mother's
womb and be born? Is that what you're saying? That's
utterly ridiculous. They told me not to come here,
and I think you're some kind of fanatic. That's impossible.
Is that what you're saying? Is that the way he asked that?
Or did he ask it something like this? I know that you're not
saying that I have to enter back into my mother's womb. But what
are you saying, Master? But we don't know because we
weren't there. But if we could have been there,
If we could have heard the tone of this question, if we could
have seen his facial expressions, if we could have seen the movement
of their eyes as they talked, that would have helped us to
understand a lot, wouldn't it? So some of these things we don't
understand, we have to speculate. You'd have been very interested
to see how this religious man left this visit. And I imagine
confused as he could be in his mind, don't you? Here, no doubt,
he had been telling these Gentile converts that to be in the kingdom
of God, you have to be circumcised and you have to adopt Judaism
and live like I'm living. And now you're this Jesus of
Nazareth tells them, no, Nicodemus, you're not in the kingdom yourself.
And the only way you can see this kingdom and enter this kingdom
is to be born from above. And oh, I think it would be easy
to speculate that this man left this meeting with Jesus of Nazareth
confused in his mind. What is my standing with God? Will I ever get this straight?
Will I ever understand what it means to be born again? And can
you see him going home and for days, possibly weeks, wrestling
with this question? What it means to be born again? Oh, I tell you, when the Lord Jesus
sets down with a man to teach him, I tell you, he speaks with
such authority. You don't just go off and forget
what you heard. When He speaks to our hearts,
when He begins to open our understanding, I tell you some anxious thoughts
arise. And I just about bet you this
is what happened to this man. He left here confused and anxious
about it all. We don't know if Nicodemus was
ever born again for sure, but there is some strong evidence
in the Scriptures that he was. I want to read a couple of places
to you. I want you to look in John's Gospel, Chapter 7. I want
you to hold John 3, but look in Chapter 7. This is where the Sanhedrin,
in which Nicodemus served on, had got together and was accusing
our Lord of things. And it was going on right in
one of their meetings that they were having. And the Pharisees
here in verse 46 had sent officers to take the Lord, and they came
back without Him. And these officials, these Sanhedrin
rulers said, Why have you not brought Him? They said, Well,
we did indeed go to get Him. And we wanted to obey your command.
But when we got there and began to listen to Him, All of us begin
to realize that nobody ever spoke like he did. And though we tried
to muster up the courage to lay hands on him, we couldn't. So
we've come back to tell you, we didn't get him. We didn't
get him. And they said in verse 47, Are you also deceived? Has this
man deceived you by his talk about being born again? about
this kingdom of God? And oh, what an indictment they
brought against themselves in verse 48. Have any of the rulers
or of the Pharisees believed on Him as if that was something
to brag about? I've got a sneaking hunch that
one of them either had already or was beginning to. Because
look what the Scripture tells us in verse 49. But this people
who know not the law are cursed. Nicodemus said unto them, He
that came to Jesus by night, being one of them, doth our law
judge any man before it hear him and know what he saith? Oh, he's beginning to come out,
isn't he? Look in another place. Look in John chapter 19. John's Gospel, chapter 19. Look
in verse 32. This is where the Master was
upon the cross, breathed out His last breath and says, It's
finished. They come and they break the
legs of those two thieves on either side of Him. The soldiers
came to examine the Lord Jesus, saw that He was dead and breaking
out His legs. These two men come and take his
body down from the cross. And look who one of them is.
And look in verse 35. And he that saw it, when they
pierced the Lord's side, and verse 34, blood and water came
out. And he that saw it by record,
and his record is true, and he knoweth what he saith is true,
that you might believe. For these things were done that
the scripture should be fulfilled. A bone of him should not be broken.
That's why they didn't break his leg, but pierced his side.
And another scripture said, They shall look on him whom they have
pierced. And after this, Joseph of Arimathea,
being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews,
besought Pilate that he might take the body of Jesus. And Pilate
gave him leave, and he came therefore and took the body of Jesus. And
there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by
night, and he bought me a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred
pound weight." Sometimes we get a picture of
the cross that it's way up in the air. But history tells us
usually they were low, some of them two or three feet off the
ground at the bottom. Can't you see Nicodemus and Joseph
as they begin to take this body down from the cross? I wonder if his mind didn't go
back to that first night that the Lord preached to him as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. And here he is ready
to wrap his arms around that body and take it down from the
cross, and blood is everywhere. It's running from his brow. It's running from his face. It's
running from the hole, and his body is bloody. It's God crimson
with the blood of Jesus of Nazareth. I wonder if he didn't think to
himself, this is the serpent. And if he never looked before,
I bet he looked then. Not with just the eyes of his
body, but with the eyes of his understanding. There he saw him
lifted up. And he takes him down and he
wraps him in all of this gray clothes with all of this sweet
spices, and they lay him in the tomb. Nicodemus, who came to
Jesus by night. He begins to come out. You know when a man is born again. When the light of the gospel
of Jesus Christ is shined through unto him, there will be evidence
of it. I'm not even saying that he's
for sure always exactly when it happened. But there's evidence
of it, isn't there? Brother John Mitchell made a
statement about the new birth, and he said it like this. He
says sometimes the new birth is like walking in a dark room,
and you flip the light switch, and suddenly the room is flooded
with light. It happens that quick, and there's
no dark places, there's no shadows. Everything is plain and clear. But he said it's not always that
way. Sometimes it's like the slow rising of the sun. You have a lot of shadows. You
have a lot of dark areas. You have some valleys that you
can't see down in, still because of the darkness. But after a
while, though the sun may get directly overhead, but after
a while, you begin to see clearly. That's the way it was, I guess,
with this man. That's the way it is with so
many people. But where we're born of God,
where we're born again, there will be evidence of it. You'll
begin to come out. You'll begin to stand for God
and His truth. And you'll find yourself, and
others will find you, there at the cross, where anybody that's
concerned can see you identifying with Christ and Him crucified. There will be some evidence of
it. And there was some evidence of it in this man's life that
he had indeed been born again. I want to look at Nicodemus'
life when he came to the Lord Jesus Christ just for a minute.
What kind of fellow was he when he came to the Lord Jesus? I
like to know that, don't you? I like to know. I love to read
people's testimonies sometimes and hear them testify about what
kind of person they were when they came to Christ. The Bible
tells us, it gives us a profile of this man. If the Lord had
to give a profile of you, of what kind of person you were
when you came to Christ, I wonder what He would write about you
and about me. I've had people to tell me before,
and it just really upsets me. Oh boy, well, it makes me mad
if they press it. I had a fellow tell me one time,
I was talking to him about coming to the Lord. Why don't you come
to the Lord? Well, he said, yeah, but you were such a good person
anyway. It makes you want to grab him and choke him. You think
I'm a good person? Let me show you. I love it when we know what kind
of people come to the Lord. I read a story this week about,
if I can remember, that William McKay is his name. He's born
there in Scotland in 1800, 1830 something. And he was 17 years old. His mother
knew the Lord, loved the Lord, taught him, read to him. Come
time for him to go away to school and she didn't want him to go. And he insisted on going to college,
and she got him a Bible. And in the front leaf of his
Bible, she wrote her name, and his name, and John 3.16, and
sent him off to college. He finished college, went into
medical school. Even though he was a scoundrel,
drank all the time, he became a very famous doctor. head of
the largest hospital in Edinburgh, Scotland when he was a very young
man. He pawned his Bible to get some
more drink while he was in college. While he was a doctor, he became
the head, the president of the Atheist Club there in Edinburgh. A confessed and committed atheist
is what he said about himself. One day they brought a man in
that had been injured in an accident. Because he was dying, they asked
Mr. McKay to watch over him and help
him. And when the man found out he was dying, he said, Would
you send to my landlady and tell her to send me the book? Send
me the book. And Mr. McKay sent for the book,
whatever that was. Tell him to bring him the book.
He wants the book. They brought the book. The man
died a few hours later. Mr. McKay asked the nurse, did
the man get his book? What was so important about the
book? Did it have some kind of bank notes or dates in it that
he needs? She said, well, it's under his pillow, if you want
to see it. He pulled it out. He said, that
looks familiar. He turned the first page of the
Bible, and there was his name, his mother's name, and John 3,
16. He was so overwhelmed. overwhelmed
with guilt, he went back to his office, got down on his face
and began to seek the Lord for mercy. And when he found mercy,
he told his mother, the Lord has used the Bible that you gave
me in that verse to convert my poor soul. You know why I love
that. It just tells what kind of men,
what kind of people the Lord saves. And I just want to look
at this man just for a minute before we go on in this study.
So let's look at it in Matthew chapter 23, and I'm telling you
it's not flattering. It's not a flattering profile
of this man who was called a Pharisee, a ruler and master of Israel. Look at it here in Matthew 23,
and let's just go through this right quickly. Let's take a minute.
Matthew 23, beginning in verse 1, Then spake Jesus unto the
multitude, and to his disciples said, The scribes and the Pharisees
sat in Moses' seat. All therefore whatsoever they
bid you observe, that observe and do, but do not ye after their
works, for they say and do not. Here they are called Pharisees,
and that means separated ones. They loved to call themselves
separatists. And sometimes they said, we're
the beloved of God and we're the loyalists. We're the loyalists. That's what they loved to call
themselves. They called themselves Pharisees. But look here at their
hypocrisy. Look what they did there in verse
3. They wrote down rules for others. And they commanded and
insisted on other people living by the rules that they wrote.
But they didn't live by themselves. That's hypocrisy, isn't it? They
sat in Moses' seat. They thought they had the authority
to write instructions and commandments and traditions and then enforce
them upon the people. They had power to receive you
into fellowship. They had power to excommunicate
you. And if you didn't keep their rules, that's what they did.
But they didn't keep them themselves. Look here at their cruelty. Look
how cruel they were and look how uncaring they were in verse
4. They bind heavy burdens and grievous to be born, and they
lay them on men's shoulders. But they themselves will not
move them with one of their fingers." John Gill said, history tells
us about these Pharisees commanding and insisting that the temple
be maintained on the backs of the poor people. When some were
traveling and didn't have their sacrifices, they demanded the
poor people from their own flocks to provide them sacrifices. But these rich Pharisees who
had plenty of money would not lift their finger to relieve
the burden that they put upon the poor people. They did the
Lord's disciples this way. They did that poor man with a
withered hand this way. Remember when the Lord healed
a man on the Sabbath with a withered hand? And remember what one of
these Pharisees said. There are six days that you can
be healed. Don't come here on the Sabbath
to be healed. Isn't that a burden? The Lord's
people, the Lord's disciples were hungry one day and it was
the Sabbath. They were walking through a grain
field. They pulled off some wheat or oats and they rubbed them
in their hands to get the husk off to eat them. And they said
they're not supposed to do that on the Sabbath day. And besides,
they haven't even washed their hands. Ain't that something? How cruel, how unkind. And he says here in verse 5,
look at their veins show. But all their works they do to
be seen of men. Everything. You remember that
Pharisee up in the temple to pray? And he prayed so everybody
could hear him. I fast twice a week." What did
he say that? He was bragging about it, wasn't
he? I pay tithes of all that I possess.
You have to pray that loud, sir. Yes, I do, because I want people
to hear me. I want people to know what I'm doing. I'm not
an extortioner. I'm a holy man. He prayed, he
tithed, he fasted. just so men would see it. What
will people do? What will we do just to be seen? How much will a man deny? How
much will a man suffer? How much labor will he exert
just to be seen of men? Sometimes I wonder why I'm in
the ministry. Sometimes I wonder if it ain't
just to impress the masses. Did you ever wonder why you do
what you do? We know why they did everything
they did was to be seen of men. And our Master here said they
made broad their phylacteries. They had these scriptures they
tied up in skins and put on their foreheads and wore them on their
hands. They misunderstood the interpretation of the Lord told
them to keep the word in their mind is what he told them. Between
their eyes to look at it in your hand. And they started writing
these scriptures and putting them on the forehead of these
skins. And one had the skins out here full of scriptures and
comments on it. And the other one said, well, I want mine a
little bit wider. And the other said, I think I'll put mine on.
And after a while, they were so broad, you could see them
coming five or six blocks away. There comes a Pharisee. Look
at his phylactery. And the Lord said they made broad
their garments. The Lord commanded them in the
Old Testament on the borders of their garment. Put a border
on their garment and sew it with a blue seam around it. And it was to remind them to
keep the commandments of the Lord. Remind them they were the
Lord's people. And boy, here they started bragging
about it. And they made their borders so broad, you couldn't
even hardly pass them on the street. Like a woman wearing
one of these old can-cans. Remember that? to be seen of
men. And look in verse 6. When you
walked into a room, you could tell who was the Pharisee because
he always was up front. He always had the prominent seat.
And look in verse 6. They loved the uttermost rooms
at feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues. That's where
they sat so people could see them. And in verse 7, look at
this. Their titles. Man, they loved
titles. They loved the greetings in the
marketplace and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. It wasn't enough just to say,
Master. They wanted you to say, Master,
Master. Not enough to say, Reverend, the Most Holy Reverend. Titles. Men get upset. Because you won't
introduce them as Dr. Sosa. How should I introduce
you? As Bob? Oh, no. Brother Bob Davis? Oh, no. How would you want me to introduce
you? Dr. Bob Davis. And if you don't, He may call
your hand on it. Brothers and sisters, it happens.
And when you saw Nicodemus down in the marketplace, you didn't
say, Nicodemus, how are you doing? You may offend this man. He may
call you out. He wants you to address him this
way. Rabbi, Rabbi. Master, Master. Teacher, Teacher. And they love
that. They eat that up. And look in
verse 13. It gets more serious. Boy, look
at this. This is serious now. This is not just affecting themselves,
but this started affecting other people. Look at verse 13. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees
and hypocrites, for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against
men. For you neither go in yourselves,
neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in You hate God
yourself. You don't want anything to do
with the salvation of your soul by the grace of God. And you
want everybody else to be lost with you. You won't seek the
Lord yourself and those who are seeking Him. You're hindering
them. Oh, that's a serious thing. Not
only their own blood upon their heads, but the blood of others.
on their heads. That's serious, ain't it? And
look in verse 14. Man, they were thieves. They
robbed widows. Look in verse 14. What do you
scribes, pharisees, and hypocrites? You devour widows' houses. You
devour widows' houses. They read the morning paper and
saw when a man died, if he had a widow, and they had run over
there, and defraud her out of her property. And then they would
get up before the widow and pray, Oh, God bless this poor widow. And they would just keep on praying
that to impress her. They were thieves. The Lord said,
Woe be to you. And look in verse 15. Boy, look
at this. This has to do with their converts
too. Woe unto you, scribes, pharisees,
and hypocrites! You can pass land and sea, sea
and land, to make one convert, one Gentile convert. And when
you have made him, you make him twofold more the child of hell
than yourselves. Woe be to you! That's the kind
of man Nicodemus was. He wasn't a fine little fellow,
was he? He wasn't a good holy man. Making men two-fold the child
of hell. I was talking with my brother.
He's been somewhat anxious about his soul lately. And I was talking
to him a couple of weeks ago and telling him that you're living
and dying without any hope in Christ. And he said, well, I
don't know now. I said, what do you mean? He
said, well, I've been watching this preacher on TV and he told me
if I prayed this prayer after him that everything was alright. And he said, I prayed this prayer
and I feel pretty good. I said, so this prayer has saved
you? He said, you know, I think it has. And now you can't tell
him otherwise. Saved, regenerated by prayer? And that preacher has done this
to him. I read a statistic one time that Billy Graham's converts,
90% plus, and they keep a record of those numbers. They get your
name when you go forward to make a decision. They get your name,
address, and phone number and give you some pamphlets and so
on. So they followed his converts. And they said 90% plus have no
change in their life. They lived in sin when they went
to make the decision. They lived in sin after their
decision. And those who did make a change,
there is no telling what kind of congregation they attended.
Many of them attended the Catholic churches, Mormons and everything
else. Woe be to those who for whatever
motives to increase their number or to increase their finances,
make merchandise out of men's souls. The Bible knows nothing
of decisional regeneration. The Bible knows nothing of repeating
the sinner's prayer to be born again. The Bible talks about
repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, a new
birth from above. Jesus Christ being revealed to
our hearts and our understanding, and anything short of that, my
brother and my sister, will make a man two-fold the child of hell
than he was in the beginning. And that's what these Pharisees
were all about. Look how one-sided they were.
Look in verse 23. Look how off-balance they were.
Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites! You pay tithes,
you pay tithes of mint and anise and cumin. You pay tithes on
everything. You wouldn't miss paying tithes
on anything. But you've omitted the weightier matters of the
law. Judgment. Justice. What's right. And mercy. Your need of it and everybody
else's need of it. And faith. and justification
by faith, and a life lived by faith. You've omitted that. These are to you have done. I'm not to leave the others undone. And boy, here in verse 25 through
verse 28, he gets at the heart of the problem, doesn't he? Look
here in verse 25. Here's their whole problem. Woe
to you, scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites! You may clean the
outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are
full of extortion and excess. You blind Pharisee, cleanse first
that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside
of them may be clean also. Woe unto you scribes, Pharisees,
and hypocrites! Well, you're like whited sepulchers.
You're like gravestones that people paint white and beautify
them, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full
of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness. Even so, you also
outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within you are full
of hypocrisy and iniquity. Nicodemus, that's the way it
was. And look here in verse 34. They said here in verse 31, verse
30, they said this. If we had been in the days of
our fathers, we would have not been partakers with them in the
blood of the prophets. Wherefore, be you witnesses unto
yourselves that you are the children of them which kill the prophets.
And what the Lord is simply saying here, you're saying you're better
than your father's word that killed the prophet. He said,
I tell you what I'm going to do there in verse 34, I'm going
to send you prophets. I'm going to send you apostles
and wise men to preach the gospel to you. And you know what you're
going to do? Some of you are going to kill. Some of you are
going to crucify. You're going to scourge them.
You're going to persecute them in your synagogues from city
to city. You're just like your fathers. And that's what Stephen told
them right before they stoned him, wasn't it? You stiff-necked
and uncircumcised in heart, you do always resist the Holy Ghost
as your fathers did so to you. Your fathers killed the prophets.
You killed the king of prophets. And you killed his subjects.
And they stoned him. This was the Pharisees. This
was the Pharisees. Ain't it a miracle then? Ain't
it a wonderful thing that makes your life and your soul that
one of them came to Christ? You think the Lord didn't come
to save sinners of all kinds? Nicodemus, that we've just described
to you, we gave you a profile of this man, he came to Jesus. Now, turn back over to my text
again in John, and we'll hurry. I promise you, we'll hurry. Here in verse 6, John chapter
3 and verse 6, the Lord's going to tell Nicodemus that the new
birth has nothing to do with his mother. And I enter the second
time into my mother's womb. It has nothing to do with your
mother. It has nothing to do with your daddy. It has nothing
to do with flesh and blood whatsoever. But the new birth has to do wholly
with the Word of God and with the Spirit of God. Look what
he says in verse 6. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh. You could be born of the flesh
ten times. And it wouldn't change a thing.
If you could get back into your mother's womb, if that was possible,
and be born to her ten times over, every time, you'd come
out foul, you'd come out sinful, you'd have to live in this old
weak flesh, growing old and wrinkled and painful until it died and
went back to the dust and decayed. The new birth has nothing to
do with the flesh. That's plain ain't it? That which
is flesh is flesh. And I'm telling you brothers
and sisters, all you can do with flesh, you have to medicate it
when it's sick, feed it when it's hungry, rest it when it's
tired, have to support it and bathe it once you can, but you
have to keep it in check. If you don't, it'll get you in
trouble. And the best you and I can do with flesh is just to
keep it subdued, not let it have its way until it's old and dead
and decayed. That's flesh. It's grass and
it's withered. And if you're trying to make
it any better, you're going to be disappointed. I've tried that
for a long time. It won't work. Just keep it subdued. Just keep it beat down. Don't
let it have its way. And if you do that, you'll do
well. You'll do well. Oh, but look here what he said.
That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Oh, that's wonderful,
isn't it? There's a fleshly birth. And
oh, how burdensome it is to us. But there's a spiritual birth.
And that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Oh, what a
wonderful thing this is. Man, someone told me, maybe it's
my wife. My poor dad, he got almost repulsive
looking when he was old. I've got a picture of him there
in my living room, and I look at it sometimes in my life, and
I think it was my wife or somebody told me the other day, oh, you
sure resemble your dad. But why shouldn't I? I'm born
of my Dad. My Dad begot me. I'm born of
His seed. That's why I'm having these troubles.
That's why I'm looking old. That's why I'm going to die. I resemble Him because I'm born
of His seed. Isn't it a wonderful event to
be born of the Spirit and resemble Him? If we're born of the Spirit,
He's begotten us, then we resemble Him. We are in His likeness. We have His nature. We're takers,
the Bible tells us, of a divine nature. We resemble Him. Dr. Scripture tells us that the
Spirit is holy, that He's a holy Spirit. He's a righteous Spirit. And don't the Scripture teach
us in Ephesians 4, 24, doesn't it tell us that every born-again
soul is created in righteousness and true holiness? We resemble
Him. Is He not said to be the Spirit
of love and joy and peace and longsuffering and goodness and
gentleness? And doesn't He impart to every
newborn soul His fruit and His graces? We resemble Him. We have His nature because we're
born of the Spirit. That which is Spirit is Spirit. He's an incorruptible Spirit. He'll never grow tired. He'll
never grow old. And don't the Bible teach us
that if any man is in Christ, He is a new creature. It never
says we were a new creature. But he is a new creature. You
may have been here 40 years, 50 years, that you're in Christ. You know something? You're still
a new creature. Brother, I love what Brother
Mahan, he says, he says in Christ, I am eternally young. My body
is growing old, my mind is not thinking, but in Christ I am
young. And in Christ this new creature
will always be new because it's born of the Spirit. And it can't
be corrupted. Being born again, not of corruptible
seed, that's my daddy. The reason I'm experiencing corruption
now, because I was born of a corruptible seed. But Peter said, being born
of the incorruptible seed. What does that mean? That means
it can't corrupt anything, and it can't be corrupted. You're
born of the incorruptible seed, and that which is born of the
incorruptible seed can never grow old. It can never wear out. It's eternally young just as
the spirit, the triune spirit begot him. He resembles. He has the nature. He has the
disposition. He has the fruit of that spirit. Born of the word which liveth
and abideth forever. Isn't that wonderful then? Oh,
what the new birth is. Born from above. Here in verse 5 of John chapter
3, why does the Lord Jesus say we must be born of the water
and of the Spirit? What is this water? You know, I've never had any
problem with this. I don't think I'm right about this. But to
me, this has always meant the Word. This is a spiritual book,
and when we read it through spiritual eyes, things become plain. Except
a man be born of the water and of the Spirit." Everywhere in
the Bible we are told about water. In Ezekiel chapter 36, I will
sprinkle clean water upon them and they shall be clean from
all their filthiness and all their idols. Will I clean them?
I just wonder if he is talking about natural water. How could
he be talking about natural water? Water cannot reach the conscience
cabin. When John the Baptist was out
baptizing in Jordan, when it came a big rain and the river
was muddy, I wonder if he quit baptizing because he said, we
can't baptize in that. The water's muddy. We've got
to have clean water. You're clean through the Word
that I have spoken unto you. Husbands, love your wives as
Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might
cleanse it with a washing of water By the Word. In the new birth, there's these
two things. These two wonderful things. The
first one, there's a washing. There's a cleansing. A cleansing
from sin. And how does that come? By the
Word. By the Gospel. When the Gospel
comes, it cleanses us. He forgives us. He washes us.
He loved us and washed us. Aren't you glad you don't have
to go your life trying to serve the Lord with your conscience
weighted down with guilt and fear of your sins? There's forgiveness
with the Lord and it takes place in the new birth. A washing,
except you be born of the water. What is the water? Washing. Washing. But he says here also, except
you be born of the water and of the Spirit. This is the second
thing that happens in the new birth, is life. Life. The Spirit of life in Christ
Jesus has made me free. And ain't that the two things
that you and I need? We're dead in trespasses and
sins, so we have to have life. How do we get life when the Spirit
comes? God has sent forth the Spirit
of His Son into your heart, crying, Father, Father, has He done that
for you? Then you have life. Isn't that
what you needed? And what else did you need? All
this guilt of your sin washed away. That's why Paul wrote to
Titus and he says, God has saved us. not by the washing of regeneration,
not by works of righteousness which we've done, but according
to His mercy He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing
of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost. And the Lord comes here
to Nicodemus and He says, Nicodemus, buddy, I tell you, all your show,
all your religion is not going to help you. Man may pat you
on the back and brag about you. You may have the seats in the
synagogue and the feast. Ain't going to help you. You're
born of your mother. You're born of corruptible seed
and you're going to die and your body's going to decay. If you're
to ever enter the kingdom of God, if you're ever to be accepted
with my father, you have to be born of the word. You have to
be cleansed. And you have to have the life
of the Spirit within your heart. And after knowing something about
this man, who he was, man, wasn't that a mouthful to say to a man
like this? Look over here in one more scripture, and I'll
close with this. Look in this same epistle, John chapter 1,
same book, and look in verse 11. Look in verse 11. We'll close
with reading these passages. The Bible says in verse 11, He
came unto His own, and His own received Him not, but to as many
as received Him, to them gave He power to become sons of God. even to them that believe on
his name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of
the flesh, nor of the will of man, but they were born of God."
Boy, does this tell us here how we can know that we're born of
God? He says, you're as many as received Him. They're born of God. Have you
received Him? Do you receive it? Receive His fullness into your
utter emptiness? As the old songwriter said, do
you receive His food into your hunger? His water into your thirst
to quench it? Do you come to Him naked for
dress, poor to be made rich, dead to live, rejected to be
received? Do you receive Jesus Christ? Do you believe on His name? His name is who He is. Do you
believe in His name? Everyone that believeth that
Jesus is the Christ is born of God. You say, Bruce, I do. I do. God knows I do with all
my heart. All the grace that He giveth
me, I receive Him. He's mine. He's mine. He's all
my life, my hope. He's everything. Then you're born of God. You're
born of God. That's what he says there in
verse 13, isn't it? This believing, this receiving,
is the immediate fruit of this new birth. It can't be separated
from the new birth. They both take place at the same
time, in the same heart. But if you believe on Him, if
you receive Him, verse 13 says you're born of God. What you had no will to do, What
you had no knowledge to do, what you had no desire, intelligence, He did for you. When you didn't
even know your need of it, by His own sovereign will, He rebirthed you. Oh, isn't that
wonderful? That's wonderful. His own sovereign
will did for you what you didn't have sense enough to do for yourself. Who ever heard about an infant
begetting himself? No, it's not of the flesh, is
it? It's not of blood, but it's of God's sovereign will. Oh, bless it. I've kept you a
little long. You'll come back tonight, I promise
you, I won't keep you this long. I'm going to finish this tonight.
Let it spray.