Let's open our Bibles tonight
to the Book of John, Chapter 3. Chapter 3 of the Book of John. Don't let your familiarity with
this portion of Scripture cause you to lose its blessing and
its value, its importance. Let's look at it as if we've
never seen it before. John 3, verse 1, there was a
man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. Now, I don't
need to explain to you what a Pharisee was. They were very religious people.
They were very devout people. They were very moral people.
They were very orthodox. Actually, I believe if you were
to present Nicodemus's counterpart today, he would not be, Jay,
I do not believe he would be a liberal. I do not. A lot of people think Nicodemus's
counterpart today would be a pastor of a liberal church denying the
inspiration of the scripture, the virgin birth. the second coming of Christ and
things of this nature. I don't believe that at all.
Actually, Nicodemus' counterpart today would be a strong, avid,
zealous fundamentalist, a separationist, a legalist. That's right, Bill,
he would be. He would be on the forefront
of straightening out America, straightening out America's morals,
He would be pastor of a very separated church. They would
have rules and regulations. See, this man, the Pharisees,
Paul said he was a Pharisee. And he said, concerning the law,
I was blameless. And I was zealous and orthodox,
fundamental in what they called fundamentals then. Wouldn't you
say that's so? Very fundamental. And this man
came to the Lord Jesus Christ. He was a ruler. That is, he was
a man in the forefront. He was an important religious
man, very important. He would be pastor of a pretty
good-sized congregation. He'd have influence all over
the country. Nicodemus was an important man, and he was a devout
Orthodox man. Now it says he came to Jesus,
verse 2, by night. I'm not going to spend any time
on that. I know he's identified in another portion of Scripture
as the one who came by night. And we could spend a lot of time
on that. Perhaps he didn't want to be seen. I don't know. Perhaps
it was the only time he could come. Well, what difference really
does it make? He came to Christ. And he acknowledged the fact
that Christ, he believed that Christ was a teacher who came
from God. There was no ordinary man. He
said, now Rabbi, that means master or teacher. We know, I'm persuaded
of this, that you are a teacher come from God. God sent you. For no man, it's impossible for
any man to do the miracles you do except God be with him. I
acknowledge that Nicodemus said. And Jesus answered and said unto
this religious man, this orthodox, moral, separationist, this legalist,
This devout man, this zealous man, this enthusiastic religious
man, this man who stood on the straight corner and read the
Scriptures, this man who fasted and prayed and attended the synagogue
every Sabbath day, this man who tithed diligently, this man who
was no adulterer or extortionist or unjust man, who looked upon
himself as being a man of God, our Lord said to him, Verily,
verily, surely, surely, I say unto you, except a man be born
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Now listen to Nicodemus. And
this may be what somebody's asking here tonight. This is why I'm
dealing with the subject. Nicodemus asking, saying, how
can a man be born when he's old? You talk about being born again.
I don't understand what you mean by being born again. How can
I be born again? Can a man enter the second time
into his mother's womb like he was conceived and shapen and
brought forth into the world and be born? The Lord answered
and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, unto you, Nicodemus.
This is not a message that I'm preaching out to the world right
now. I'm preaching this to you, Nicodemus. I say it unto you. Except a man be born of the water,"
I believe that's the Word of God, and of the Spirit of God,
he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. Now, the world has gone through
many changes since our Lord uttered these words almost 2,000 years
ago. Empires have risen and fallen.
Billions of people have been born and lived and died. There
are a lot of changes in this work. But there stands the words
of our Lord Jesus Christ, unaltered and unchanged. Except a man be
born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. Except a man
be born of the Word and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom
of God. There these words of our Lord
stand, unaltered and unchanged, and they will stand, he said,
until heaven and earth pass away. Heaven and earth shall pass away,
but not one word from the Word of God shall pass away. Now,
we're not strangers to these words. Here's the second thing
I thought about preparing this message. I'm no stranger to the
words, born again, born again. I was talking to a man last week,
probably what prompted this message, and He had moved to this section
of the country, and I said, are you happy here? Yeah. How's your
health? Well, pretty good, but I got me a good born-again doctor.
I got me a good born-again doctor. And we talked about something
else, someplace he traded, and that was a good born-again merchant,
you know, and a good born-again this, that. So I'm familiar with
these words. You are, too. We're familiar. Religionists have preached about
it. You must be born-again. There's a song in our hymn books,
You Must Be Born Again. People have argued about it.
They've sought to explain it. Billy Graham wrote a whole book
on it. People have defined it. So we're not strangers to these
words. You must be born again. The worldlings have ridiculed
it. Now, you pick up your paper every once in a while and you
see some article making fun of the new birth. And really and
truly, I'm sympathetic with news people. What they see and what
they hear in religion today that claims to be born again, I make
fun of it too. Joe, I sympathize with them. What these characters call the
new birth today, they're shysters and hucksters and merchandisers
of men's souls and compromisers and greedy and covetousness and
they talk about they've been born again, I make fun of that
too. And so the world mocks it and
ridicules it and makes fun of it, and professors of religion
abuse it. And they misuse it, and the liberals,
they minimize it. But whatever the new birth is,
whatever it is, these words stand unchanged. Ye must be born again. Our Lord said this. Our Lord
Jesus Christ. Whatever regeneration is, whatever
the new birth is, according to the scriptures, I must be born
again or I'll never see the kingdom of God. And that word may mean
discern, understand, or judge. But the next verse says, except
a man be born again, he won't enter the kingdom of God. He
will not enter it. I hope to throw some scripture
light on this subject tonight. I invite you to listen to me
if you want to, to take some notes. I'm going to give some
things that I think are worthy of writing down. But I want the
Lord, if He's pleased, and like Bill read a moment ago in David's
prayer, he said, let it please the Lord to bless this house.
Let it please the Lord. So may it please the Lord tonight
to give us some understanding of the new birth. If we're helped,
I'll thank God and praise Him and be abundantly satisfied.
I know without Him we can do nothing. And I know the average
person is confused about the new birth. He's mixed up about
it. He doesn't understand it. And
the average preacher just muddies the water when he preaches on
the new birth. I hope I don't muddy the water
tonight. But here are three things I'll be dealing with. What does
it mean to be born again? Now that's a mouthful. What does
it mean to be born again? And secondly, why is it necessary
for us to be born again? Christ said you must. Must. He uses this word must. You must
be born again. You must be born again. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, verse 7, ye must be born again. The Son of God must be lifted
up, must, and I must be born again. And then the third question
I'm going to ask is this, what are some of the evidences of
the new birth? Now here's the first one, what
does it mean to be born again? Now I'm sure everybody here tonight
is aware of a difference, a difference in people who call themselves
Christians. I heard a man on television say
a few weeks ago that 53% of the American population is born again. 53% of the American population
is Christian. Well, now, I know there's a difference.
Our Lord gave this parable. He said a man went out in his
field and sowed wheat. He sowed wheat. And while he
slept, an enemy came and sowed tares. And the wheat and the
tares came up together. And the servant said, let me
go out and pull up the tares. And the master of the house said,
let them grow together. Lest when you pull up the tares,
you pull up the wheat also. Now in churches and in religion,
as we know it today, there are wheat and tares. There's wheat
and tares. And what do you mean by tares
and wheat? Well, I mean this. There is a nominal, what we call
a nominal, average Sunday religious attender. His interest in religion
is purely from the standpoint of gaining heaven and missing
hell. He's just a nominal church member. Religion is sort of a
sideline. Now, you know this is so. I don't
need to draw this picture, and I want to be careful now to keep
from offending anyone, but there's what we call today a nominal
Christianity. There's no enthusiasm, and I'm
not talking about wildfire enthusiasm, I'm talking about just enthusiasm
with the scripture, an obsession with Christ. There's nominal,
you've been a pastor for many churches, Jay, and you've held
meetings in a hundred churches in the North Florida alone, and
you know religious people. There are those who really have
no concern for Christ, and love for Christ, and hunger and thirst
for righteousness, and who mourn over their sins, who seek the...you
know that. There are pastors even in this
town that have just bowed down with the burden of trying to
pastor uninterested people. Now, they're just bowed down.
They're pastoring people whose feelings are always getting hurt,
and people who are always coming and going, and they're quitting,
and they won't attend church, and they don't worship, and they
don't read the Bibles, and they don't pray, and they don't support
the missionaries, and they just don't have any real interest,
but they say they're Christians. They say they're Christian. And
then there are other people in that same church People who worship
God in the Spirit. People who believe the Word of
God. People who love the Lord Jesus
Christ. People who praise Christ. People
who pray. People who mourn over their sins.
People who seek God's mercy. Their comfort and their joy and
their interest is in Christ. Faithful. Diligent. Loyal. Hungry. They're the people like
those in the Beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit, theirs
is the kingdom of God. Blessed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they that mourn,
for they shall be comforted. Blessed are they that hunger
and thirst for righteousness, they shall be filled. The people
who have taken up their cross and followed Christ. The people
who have stood for the truth, and they've lost friends, and
they've lost families, and they've lost jobs, and they've lost comrades,
and all of these things. They've stood for the truth diligently
and loyally and faithfully because they love it. They don't have
a martyr complex, but they just stood because Christ is their
life, and Christ is their hope, and Christ is their refuge, and
Christ is their confidence. Now you know that's true, isn't
it? You know it's true and I know it's true. Well, what's the difference? Well, I say this, the difference
is the new birth. That's the difference. The difference
is regeneration. The believer who loves Christ,
loves Christ because he's been born again. The believer who
loves this book and lives by it or wants to, seeks to, does
so because he's been born again. The man who mourns over his sins
and longs to be like Christ and longs to be delivered and forgiven
and made like Christ does so because he's been born again.
The man who gives to others and who lives for the joy of others
and the happiness of others does so because he's been born again.
The man who has a home that's a happy home and husband and
wife love each other and love their children, love their neighbors,
love their families, love their church, are dedicated to it,
are doing so because they're born again. That's what I'm saying.
And the nominal formal religionist is what he is because he hasn't
been born again. Now that's the difference. He
hasn't been born. He hasn't been regenerated. He
hasn't been quickened. He hasn't been awakened. The
formal religionist changes his name. When God saves a man, he
changes his heart. That's the difference. The formal
religionist will change some of his habits. But when God saves
a man and he's born again, God changes his heart. The nominal,
formal religionist may even change his doctrine. He may cease to
be an Arminian and become a Calvinist. He may cease to be a Catholic
and become a Baptist. He may cease to be a Seventh-day
Adventist and become a Sunday worshiper. He may cease to be
this and become that. But when God saves a man and
he's born again, God doesn't just change his name and change
his habits and change his doctrine, He changes his direction too. in his heart when he's born again. Now that's
the difference. I pastored two other churches
besides this one, and I think the message preached here and
the methods used here keep a lot of this tares down. I believe
it does. When you drag folks down the
aisle, you're going to have more tares than you do if you don't.
When you preach freewillism, you're going to have more tares
than wheat. When you preach duties and merit and human works and
human righteousness, you're going to have more tares than wheat.
When you preach Christ and Christ alone, you're going to have less
of that. But in these other churches I pastored, I'm thinking of one
in particular that had over 1,200 people on the church road, 1,200
names. If you would have encountered any one of those 1,200, they
would have said, yes, I'm saved, yes, I'm going to heaven when
I die, yes, I'm born again. But they had not but about 350
of them ever came to church. I'm not saying coming to church
saves you, it doesn't. I'm not saying coming to church
reveals whether you're saved or not. But how can a man say
he loves God if he doesn't love God's Word? How can a man love
God if he doesn't love God's people? How can a man love God
if he doesn't love the gospel? How can a man love God who doesn't
pray, who doesn't worship, who doesn't praise God? How can you
love God and never want to be near the things that are of God? It can't be. It can't be. So when a man is born again,
God changes more than his name and more than some habits and
more than his doctrine, God changes his whole His heart, his nature,
his life, his direction. Now let me show you a few things
from the scripture. Ezekiel, turn to Ezekiel. Ezekiel
calls the new birth. Now different ones have different
things to say about the new birth, what it is. Turn to Ezekiel 36. Ezekiel says the new birth is
a new heart and a new spirit. A new heart and a new spirit.
That's what Ezekiel says the new birth is. In Ezekiel 36 verse
25, he says, then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and you
shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your
idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give
you. Now, you hear preachers saying
so much, give your heart to the Lord. Well, there's a little
truth in that. Because the Scripture says, my
son, give me your heart. The Bible says that. Keep thy
heart out of it of the issues of life. There's some truth to
that. Not a whole lot, but some to the way they're using it.
But the Scripture do say, my son, give me your heart. But
the new birth is God giving you a new heart. Not God changing
the old heart and the old nature and rejuvenating it and reviving
it and re-evaluating it, but it's God actually giving you
a heart you didn't have before. A new heart. And listen, and
a new spirit will I put within you. You know, Paul said, he
said, God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me
by his grace was pleased to reveal Christ. What are those next two
words? in me, that's exactly it, not
just to me, but he revealed Christ in me. This new birth is not
changing just the outward patterns, it's changing the inward principles
by giving you a new heart and a new nature. That's what the
new birth, what Ezekiel is saying here, I'm going to give you a
new heart. You're going to think differently. You're going to
evaluate things differently. You're going to love differently.
I'm going to give you a new spirit, new attitude, new principle.
I'm going to put it within you. Paul talking about the church
at Galatia, he said, I travail. I travail till you learn sovereign
grace. No, sir. I travail till you learn
that baptism is by immersion. No, sir. I travail till you get
your millennial position straightened out. No, sir. He said, I travail
like a woman bringing forth a child in birth pains till Christ be
formed in you. That's the travail of the pastor's
heart if he knows God. new nature, new spirit. Okay,
look at John 1. Let's see what John calls this
new birth. John chapter 1. The Apostle John. In John chapter 1, Ezekiel called
it a new heart and a new spirit within you. Now John chapter
1, listen to this. It says, Our Lord was in the
world, verse 10. John 1, 10. He was in this world.
The world was made by Him. The world didn't know Him. He
came unto his own, that is, the Jews, his own things, his own
people, his own received him not. But, as many as received
him, these people received the person Christ, not just his doctrines,
but him. To them gave he the privilege
or the right to become sons of God, even to them that believe
on his name. And these people were born, they
were born, not of blood, that is, not of fleshly inheritance,
that's what that means. Not of natural generation. I'm
not a believer because my daddy was. I'm not a Christian because
my parents were. There have been godly parents
who've had ungodly children. There have been ungodly parents
who've had some godly children. So it's not handed down from
father to son, and it's not of the will of the flesh. In other
words, the flesh didn't will me into the kingdom of God. I
wasn't born again by my will. I didn't will to be born again.
The old colored fella said, they asked him, they said, who saved
you? He said, the Lord did. They said, well, what'd you do?
He said, well, I did the sending, he did the saving. I did the
running, he did the catching. If I wouldn't have ever been
born again, if I could have helped it, and you wouldn't either.
It's not of the will of the flesh, and it's not of the will of man.
Don't let anybody tell you it isn't. New birth is by the free
will of God. By the free will of God. That's
so. That's what he's saying, we were
born of God. This new birth, It's an inward
giving of a new heart and a new spirit, and it's the sovereign
work of God. Men are born of God. That's so. All right, let's see what Peter
calls it in Acts chapter 3. Peter calls it being converted.
I mean, that word's been torn all to pieces. That's been so
misused. It's like the word get saved.
He'd come down and get saved. He got saved. I got saved. You
know, that's awful. We shall be saved, not got saved. And converted is a word that's
been misused. So-and-so's been converted. But
converted means something. Peter said in Acts 3, 19, repent
ye therefore and be converted. And be converted. Now, let's
go back to Matthew 18. The master says something about
that in Matthew 18. Conversion is a change. Oh, what
a change. Conversion is a change. In Matthew
chapter 18, the master's speaking here. And it says in verse 1,
at the same time came the disciples to Jesus and said, who's the
greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Now, here's ambition. Here's ambition. Here's covetousness.
Here's friction. Here's discord. Here's adults
fighting over toys. Here is pride. Here is a haughty
spirit. Here is arrogance. Here is human
will and human ambition. You see it just reeks with it.
Here are 12 men supposed to love each other. Here are 12 men who
are supposed to be looking to the master. Here are 12 men supposed
to be humbled and broken, love each other. And here one of them's
saying, well, who's going to be the greatest? And our Lord
called a little child. Well, I don't know how old the
child was. I expect he was a very little fellow, a little girl.
And set that little child right in the middle of those ambitious
men. And he said, I got something to say to you, too. Except you
be converted and become as little children, you're not going to
have to argue about who's going to be the greatest in the kingdom
of God. You ain't going to enter the kingdom of God. That's plain,
isn't it? you're not even going to enter
the kingdom of God. I had a pastor say to me not long ago, and it's
been bothering me ever since he said it, and you may hear
this tape, but I think this thing is, I think our ideas about this
are wrong. I had a pastor say to me that
he learned a lesson when he took his church, he learned a lesson.
And that lesson he learned was this. He went to this field and
became the pastor. And there was a man there that
was a deacon. And he was a man energetic, and
zealous, and in every service, and a warm, friendly individual. I knew him. And he said, I got
too close to the man. We became real close friends.
We studied together, and walked together, and discussed things
together, and so forth and so on. And he said, something, jealousy
arose in the church between him and another man, between the
families, and I lost him. He left. He quit. So I learned
a lesson. I'll never again ever get close
to one of my men. There's something wrong with
that. You mean, and this is what Christ
is saying here. Yes, if we have not, Joe, not
been born again, we're going to have friction. But if two
men have been broken, their ambitions have been broken. Their ambition
is to know Christ, to glorify Christ, to serve Christ. I hear
this saying, familiarity breeds contempt. If that be so, you'd
hold your wife in more contempt than anybody in the world, wouldn't
you? But your lover more than anybody in the world. So that
ain't so. That blew that up, didn't it? Or your mother. If familiarity breeds contempt,
you'll hate your mother, but you'll love her more than anybody.
I tell you what breeds contempt is human ambition, and human
greed, and human covetousness, and human wretchedness, and human
sin. That's what breeds contempt.
That's just so. And people who can't get close
to one another, and love one another, and walk together, and
learn one another, and share with one another, and exhort
one another, just haven't been born again. Because that's what
Christ said. You fellas are going to have
to be brought down, he said. You're too high. You're arguing
about who's going to be the greatest, and the new birth conversion,
you're arguing about who's going to be the least. The new birth,
the discussion is not who's going to be the greatest. The new birth
is who's going to serve. To serve. Who's going to serve? It's not who's going to set the
heavy table. Who's going to wait on the table? I'm going to wait
on the table. No, I'm going to wait on the
table. Let's have a fuss over who's the chief of centers. Nobody's
fussing over that. We want to know who the chief
spokesman is. Who's the chief giver? Who's the chief promoter? Well, conversion changes all
that. It surely does. All right, let
me show you what Paul says about it in Ephesians 2. Paul says
the new birth is to be alive from the dead. It's to be alive
from the dead. In Ephesians 2, verse 1, he said,
you have to be made alive or quickened who were dead, dead
in trespasses and sin. There was a time when you walked
according to the course of this world. This world was your master,
the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that worketh
in the children of disobedience was your master. You had your
behavior and conversation in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind. You were by nature
the children of wrath, but God, who is rich in mercy for his
great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead, without
hope, without God, without Christ, quickened us, made us alive,
gave us life with Christ. By grace are you saved. I'll
hurry. Paul again calls it in 2 Corinthians
chapter 5, he calls it a new creation. A new creation, he
says, therefore, verse 17 of 2 Corinthians 5, if any man be
in Christ, and the new birth is to be in Christ, is to be
in Christ. He is a new creation. Old things
have passed away. All things have become new. Turn
back one page to 2 Corinthians 4, and Paul likens it to the
creation of the world. He said, God who commanded the
light to shine out of darkness. This old world was bathed in
darkness. Darkness was upon the face of
the deep. And God said, let there be light, and light flooded this
world. And that's what happens when
God saves a man when he's born again. God shines in our hearts. In our hearts. Here we are within
again. We're not talking about an outward reformation or an
outward conformity to rules and regulations and patterns. We're
talking about life within. God shines in our hearts to give
us a knowledge of the glory of God. Not just knowledge of doctrine
and knowledge of ceremony and knowledge of ritualism. Not just
knowledge of the Hebrew and the Greek, but knowledge of the glory
of God. And where is that seen? It's
seen in the face of Jesus Christ. That's where the glory of God
sits. All right, turn to 2 Peter. Peter
calls it being a partaker of a new nature, a divine nature,
a partaker of a divine nature. It's not a religious nature.
It's a divine nature. It's not just a legalistic nature,
it's a divine nature, partaker of a divine nature. Look at 2
Peter 1, 4. 2 Peter 1, 4. It says, "...whereby
are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by
these ye might be a partaker or partakers of the divine nature."
I don't know exactly how to explain that, but I know in the new birth,
that the eternal life we receive is the life of God, the life
of God in the soul. And the nature which we receive
in the new birth is actually the nature of God. Christ said,
My Father and I will come in and take up our abode in you. The believer doesn't, he doesn't,
he's not empty and goes to the church like he goes to a filling
station to get a refill. When our Lord said, when a person
comes to me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
He is himself a service station. Christ lives within. Paul said,
I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. Christ liveth in me. And this
new birth has made those who have enjoyed it, or recipients
of it, be partakers actually of a divine nature. The Holy
Spirit dwells in the believer. If any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, he's none of His. Partakers of a divine nature. James 1.18, turn to the book
of James. James calls it to be begotten
of the Word. Begotten of the Word of God.
You know what begat means, to be born. Begotten. begat, to be born, to come forth
from a person of His own will, that is, of God's own will, James
1, 18. Of His own will begat He us with
the Word of truth, with the Word of truth. Now, here's what we're
saying in this new birth. It's of God. It's a supernatural
work which He performs. It's within the individual. It's
the creation and the giving of a new nature and a new heart,
new principles. Makes Him a new creature in Christ
Jesus. And the seed by which we are
begotten is this Word right here. This Word. And I'll show you
that again in 1 Peter if you'll turn over there. 1 Peter chapter
1. It's of the Word of God. The
Word is the seed. The life-giving seed. Now, when
a child is born, of the flesh, there's a seed involved. It has
to be. In other words, a womb is empty,
it's dead. There's no life in the womb.
There's no woman who can begot a child alone. That's what Mary
said to the angel, I can't have a child, I don't know a man.
There's got to be a seed planted for life to be begotten. And
here in 1 Peter, Peter uses that very illustration. He says in
verse 23, we're born again. Not of corruptible semen, that's
the word there, S-E-M-E-N. Not of corruptible semen, not
of human fleshly begatting or semen, but of the incorruptible,
incorruptible semen. Isn't that right, Jay? That's
exactly what that is. The Word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. That's the importance of preaching.
I want to cry out to preachers everywhere, let's quit relegating
preaching to the scrap heap. Let's quit tagging preaching
on the tail end of something. First of all, I say to the preachers,
let's do some preaching. Let's get in our studies. Let's
quit walking the streets and knocking on doors and going to
meetings and having all these other preachers say, well, I
just haven't had time to study. I've been so busy. You're too
busy. You're too busy. If you don't have time to spend
hours preparing to preach to God's people, you ought to get
out of the pulpit and sit down with somebody up there and preach.
Let's prepare some messages and preach it. God doesn't save men
by singing, by social life, by basketball games, by organization,
by all these other things. The seed is the living Word of
God. This is living Word here. This
is dynamite. The Gospel is the dunamis, dynamite
of God. It's the seed of God. It's the
life of God. A sower went forth to sow. The
sower is the Son of Man. The seed is the Word of God.
And nobody here is going to be saved without the Word of God.
I sow it. Thy Word will not be prayed,
will not return unto me void. It shall accomplish that whereunto
I have sent it." God will bless His Word, but God's not going
to bless His Word if we don't preach it. Read it, preach it,
read it, preach it, and then preach it and read it some more. I told the pastor last week,
for 20 some odd years here and over at the other place for 30
years, 31 years nearly, every service we've read God's Word,
a generous portion of God's Word. And we won't continue to do that
because God hadn't promised to bless my arguments and bless
my logic and bless my entertainment and bless my illustration, but
He has obligated Himself to bless His Word. He said, I will bless
My Word. I will bless My Word. All right? 1 John 3, John calls
it a passing from death unto life. Very similar to quickening. But I John 3, verse 14. Well, John says, we know, I John
3, verse 14, that we have passed from death unto life. Something's
happened. some astronomical, unusual, awesome,
tremendous, something's happened. We pass from a state of deadness,
depravity, darkness, to the light and life and truth of God. That blind man says, I just know
I was blind and now I can see. I can see. I can see. Now all of these expressions
that I've shared with you from Ezekiel and John and Peter and
Paul and James and all the rest, all of them come really to the
same thing in the end. All of them have the same meaning.
The new birth is the creation of a new heart and a new nature
in a center by the power of God. That's what he's saying. Bishop Ryle said this, regeneration
or the new birth is not an outward bodily alteration. We're still
men. We're still human. A man could
be born again and stand here and keep his mouth shut and never
move. You'd never know whether he's born again or not. That's
right. Not by looking. Not by looking. Sometimes not by talking, unfortunately. The new birth, we're still human,
we're still men and women, but the new birth is the giving,
the begetting of a new inner nature. Inner nature. In other words, when a man's
born again, Ralph continues, his will is new. Saul of Tarsus
says, thy will. Lord, what would you have me
do? What would you have me do? Says, speak, your servant here.
Says, change. He wasn't talking that way prior
to meeting Christ on the Damascus road. Now, here is Lord. What
will you have me do? His heart is new. He loves Christ
and his people. His attitude is new. By this
shall all men know you're my disciples if you love one another.
His interests are new. Oh, that I may win Christ and
be found in him. His actions are new. Zacchaeus
said, if I've wronged anybody, I'll restore him fourfold. Something
happened to that boy. Something happened to that boy.
Brother Shelton told me one time about a fella came into the baptismal
pool. He professed to be saved, and
he came into the pool, and he just had on his trousers and
a t-shirt, and he started down in the pool, and he reached back,
and his wallet was in his back pocket. And he says, whoop, preacher
said, let me lay that up on there. Preacher said, put it back, and
let me baptize it, too, you know. That's put it all under a while.
But old Zakir, something happened. He said, if I wronged him, I'm
going to restore it fourfold. Half my goods I give to the poor,
he said. He was a new man. So the new
birth, according to Bishop Rowell, is this, it is not an outward
bodily alteration or transformation. We're still human, we're still
men and women, but the new birth is the alteration of, the giving
of a new nature inside, in which the will is new, the heart is
new, the attitude is new, the interests are new, the actions
are new, and to all intents and purpose, that person is a new
man. You say totally? Perfectly? No, sir. Not perfectly. He'll
have conflicts and troubles and sorrows and turn to Galatians,
if you will. He'll have all kind of difficulties. But here's the thing about it.
Look at chapter 5 of Galatians. The believer has two natures.
The born-again man has two natures. Now, I know I get in a lot of
trouble sometimes with people when I preach this. Folks just
don't like to admit this. They're a little dishonest, some
people are. But it says here in chapter 5
of Galatians verse 17, for the flesh lusteth against the spirit.
And it battles the spirit. It conflicts with the spirit.
And the spirit against the flesh. Now there's two natures. There's
the fleshly nature, which you were born with when you came
into this world. I've still got the same eyes I had before I
was converted. I've still got the same brain,
same flesh, same individual. And that flesh is still there,
it's a conflict, it's a warfare. And the spirit, now this is something
I didn't have, I didn't have S-P-I-R-I-T, spirit. I didn't
have this divine nature, this new nature. There wasn't any
conflict at one time. Some of you know this, there
was one time when you didn't have any conflict at all. You
didn't have to wrestle with sin at all, you were just sin's good
buddy. You were just, the sin was your
master. Satan was your master, but he
isn't any longer. Christ is your master, but this
conflict is still there, this warfare. And these, look at them,
are contrary one to the other. These what? Plus, that can't
be one thing, these natures. I don't see how words could mean
anything if that's not what that means. He's talking about a believer,
a saved man, he has a divine nature and he has a fleshly nature.
And they're in conflict, they're in a warfare so that you cannot
do the things you would. What does that mean? That means
you can't do the things spiritually that you would. What would you
do spiritually? You'd be perfect if you could. Your spiritual
nature would be perfect. You say, today I will not sin,
today I will not, I will not embarrass my Lord. Today, I will
think nothing, say nothing, or do anything that's contrary to
perfection. Yes, you will, too. Yes, you
will. Because that old nature is not
going to let you walk that route. But then, let's turn it the other
way. Your old nature gets angry, and you say, I'm going to quit.
I'll never go back again to that church. I'll never speak to Jay
Wembley again as long as I... Yes, you will. You love Him,
you won't stop loving. You can't be that way. You can't
do it. You see what I'm saying? The
Spirit won't let you do that. I guarantee you, if God dwells
in you, you can't follow the demands of the flesh. And if
the flesh still dwells in you, you can't follow the demands
of the Spirit fully. Just can't do it. Now that's
what that means. I'm just as confident as I'm standing here
because that's what it says, number one. And number two, because
that's what you experience. And everybody here that's got
a grain of honesty in you will have to say that's so, right?
Certainly it's so. All right, why is it necessary
for a man to be born again? Let's go back to the text. Just
briefly. Our Lord said you must be born
again. Why? Well, number one, because
he said so. Now, I like to put it that way.
You know, somebody said, well, why preach? Christ said to. And
that's enough for any believer. You don't have to prove anything
to the child of God. All you have to do is read it
to him. Right, Charlie? You don't have to prove it to him. God,
Christ said so. He said you must be born again,
and that ought to finish it right there. He must. He said so. But
secondly, The new birth was necessary because of the sinfulness and
corruption of our natural hearts. Now, brethren, look down at verse
19. This is condemnation, John 3,
19. This is the condemnation, that light is coming to this
world in the person of God's Son, also in the form of God's
Word, also in God's Spirit. Light's coming to this world.
Do we run to Him? No. Do we receive it? No. Do we believe it? No. Why? We
love darkness. We love it. We love it. By nature, we love darkness.
By nature, we love sin. By nature, we love ourselves.
And we hate God. And that's so. I hate to say that, but that's
just so. We don't hate our God. We don't hate our idols. We don't
hate our ideas of God. We hate this God right here.
And we hate His will and His word and His law. By nature we
love ourselves. We want our way. And the only
way in the world that can be changed, the only way in the
world I'm going to hate what I love and love what I hate and
desire what I don't desire and not desire what I do desire is
to have a new nature. There ain't no other way. You
can get a man down here, and he can agree with what you say,
and he can join your church, and he can say, I'm going to
walk straight, I'm going to live straight, I'm going to hear the
Word, I'm going to worship, I'm going to fellowship, I'm going
to do all these things, but I guarantee you, he won't last very long.
for saying, you know, he'd be gone. And that explains a lot
of this saying these evangelists hit town and they preach a message,
don't you want to go to heaven, you don't want to go to hell
and so forth. Would you accept Jesus? And folks
come down the aisle by the hundreds and the hundreds and they line
up and they write their names down and they cry a little bit
and talk a little bit and pat each other on the back and shake
hands. We had 500 decisions, 1,000 conversions. And six months
later, like the evangelist told me, Eddie Martin, you remember
him up in up in West Virginia. I went up to Hinton, West Virginia
one time to meet with him and hear him preach. And we were
sitting around a table eating. And he said, Brother Henry, he
said, I was here one year ago in this town. He said I preached
in the high school gymnasium. He said the whole football team
was converted, the whole basketball team was converted in most of
the town. He said, I'm back here this year, and they won't even
come hear me pray. He said, I can't even feel the
downstairs of the First Baptist Church. Well, I said, I know
what's wrong, Mr. Martin. At that time, I'd been
exposed to a little gospel. I said, you're trying to save
them. They're trying to save themselves, and God hasn't saved
them. And that's the difference. And we can get them down and
they can make promises. But the only way in the world a man's
gonna love this word is to have a new nature that loves this
word. That's just so. The only way a man's gonna love
gospel and love Christ and love one another is he's got to have
a new nature because our natural hearts don't love God. Their
natural hearts do not love right. They love sin. And you know it
and I know it. The only way one of those redneck
southerners is going to love black men is to be born again.
That's the only way in this world. They're going to hate them until
they die and go to hell, unless they're born again. That's just
so. It's just so. And the only way in the world
you and I are ever going to love truth and beauty and the glory
of Christ and love other people and swallow our pride and become
the kind of people God Demands that we become is to have our
old nature suppressed and a new nature created We must be born. Yes, sir. That's the reason You
can't change it. You can't change it and you can't
there's no way to motivate a person You can't motivate you can motivate
them for a while, but it wears out You can motivate them for
a while you can and somebody says a church has to have a project
going to keep people motivated I tell you, if they've got a
good gospel going, it'll motivate them. Sure, you've got to have
anniversary day and baby day and shut-in day and banana day. You'd be one of the boys. That's
banana day. We never had one of those here. And you've got
to have all these different things to keep people interested. You
have to. The preachers have admitted the
gospels fail, that we've got to do these things. Their gospel
will always fail because it's a gospel of human works and human
merit and human righteousness. This gospel of the sovereign
grace of God, of a miracle of a new birth, of the Holy Spirit
begetting, convicting, quickening, giving life will never fail.
And I'll guarantee you this, when God comes into a man's soul,
he's born again, receives a new nature, you couldn't run him
away from the gospel. Brother, you've got him on your
hands. You've got him on your hands. That's why we have to
be, I'll tell you another reason we have to be born again, because
of the ignorance of our understanding. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter
2. We're not only love darkness. Not only love sin, we not only
have a sinful, corrupt nature, but we don't have any brains,
spiritual sense. We don't have any understanding.
You say, I built a bridge. Yeah, but you can't build one
here to heaven. You can't even understand the one God's built
either. You can't fathom it. You can't enter into it. You're
dumb. I'm dumb in spiritual things.
Just dumb, not only dumb, but totally in darkness. First Corinthians chapter 2,
verse 14, the natural man, not the spiritual man, the natural
man, receiveth not the things of God, of the Spirit of God,
their foolishness to him, he can't know them, because they're
spiritually understood, and he can't understand. You talk about
the sinfulness of men before God and man will cry, well I'm
not such a bad fellow. He doesn't understand the fall.
He doesn't understand his part in the fall. He doesn't understand
the results of the fall. He doesn't understand the consequences
of the fall. You talk to him about identification
with Adam, well that's not fair. You talk to him about identification
with Christ, now that's fair. You talk to him about his need
of a savior and he goes forth to establish his own righteousness.
You talk to him about the wisdom and righteousness of God fulfilled
in Christ and the satisfaction of God's justice, he says that's
sheer nonsense, that's foolishness. You mean to tell me that if I
live a good life and pay my bills and treat my neighbor right and
keep my own business and that I won't go to heaven? You mean
tell me that? You mean to tell me that there's
a man, there's a publican going into heaven and I'm not, and
I've done all these things? That's what Christ said. Well,
that's not fair. That's just not fair. He doesn't
understand. He's dumb. I'll tell you the
third reason. We need to be born again because
our nature is corrupted. We love darkness because we don't
understand. We don't understand. Our minds
are darkened. And thirdly, and you listen to
this, it's necessary to be born again because a natural man is
unfit to enjoy or participate in the glories of heaven. I may shock you with this, but
if God Almighty were to take a man to heaven who had not been
born again, it'd be hell for him. I believe that, he wouldn't
enjoy it. He would not enjoy it. There's
no way he could enjoy it. You see, God's kingdom is a kingdom
wherein dwelleth righteousness. God's kingdom is a kingdom where
nothing shall enter that worketh or maketh alive. God's kingdom
is a kingdom of love. And this is not that man's nature.
This is not his delight. He had never understood it. He
had never enjoyed such glory. He couldn't stand it. That's
so. So you may be saved and reach
heaven without many things, without riches, without learning, without
health, or even without friends, but not without a new nature.
You couldn't stand it. The glory, you'd be annihilated
before the glory. There's that glory of Christ
which only the regenerate can see, which only the regenerate
can enjoy, and which only the regenerate from their hearts
can eternally praise Him, for which they can praise Him. They
say, unto Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His
own blood. That's the song of heaven. Now,
you've never sung that? Then you wouldn't sing it there.
You've never seen that? You'd never see it there. You've
never participated in that? You couldn't there. You couldn't
enjoy it. It's a foreign language to be like me when I go to Mexico
and all those people are jabbering away and I don't know what they're
saying. They're saying something, but I don't know what it is.
And they're making sense to one another, but I don't know what
it is. And I can sit there in a party and all these people
around just jabbering away and you know it. Pretty soon I get
up and walk out because I can't communicate. I can't understand
and I can't enjoy it. You see what I'm saying? I'm
not talking about the believer services now, I'm talking about social
in the streets and things like that. So you take a man to heaven
without a new nature, without the new bird, he'd be a miserable
fish out of water. Couldn't stand it. Got to have
a new nature. All right, last of all and I
quit, turned to 1 John. What are the evidences of the
new birth? I'm just going to read you a few. And I'll quit
here five or six. I'll just read them just briefly
and refer to them. First John 5, 1. First John 5,
1. Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God. No question about that. He's
the Christ. He's the Messiah. He's the sent offerant. He's
the Savior. He's the atonement. He's prophet, priest, and king.
He's all things that the Old Testament says of the Messiah.
He is the Messiah. We look for no other. The man
that's born of God believes that. He doesn't just accept it as
a fact or a doctrine. He believes it. Christ is my
all and in all. Christ is my refuge. Christ is
my life. Christ is my hope. Christ is
my Savior. He's my Messiah. You see that?
All right, turn to 1 John 4, verse 6. We are of God. We are of God. He that knoweth
God, heareth us. He that's not of God, heareth
not us. That's the apostles speaking.
I'm not talking about me now. I'm talking about the inspired
apostles, the inspired word. Hereby know we the spirit of
truth, the spirit of error. That's, there it is right there.
The man who's born of God will hear God's word. He will not,
he'll not argue with God's word. He'll hear it. All you got to
do is read it. He that is of God, heareth us. He is not of God, he is not of
us. First John 4, 7. Beloved, let us love one another.
Love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God, and
knoweth God, and he that loveth not, he that loveth not, knoweth
not God. He's not been born. That's tough,
isn't it? That's just so. Barney, you say,
that's not, that's not deep, that's just so. That's deep,
Brother Barney. No, he says, no, it's just so.
We make it difficult. It's just so. He that loveth
not knoweth not God. 1 John 3, let's try this one
on. Verse 9, whosoever is born of
God does not commit sin. That's tough, isn't it? Well,
there's several things that might be said here. There's some things
that got to be said. Number one, In the sense that
we use the word commit, that can't be what that's saying.
And there's several reasons why. In other words, he's not saying
here, who serves born of God never does sin. It can't be what
he's saying because our Lord taught us to pray, forgive us
our sin. Didn't he? In that one, in his
prayer. And secondly, he said in 1 John, any man who says he
has no sin is a liar and the truth's not in him. You see,
And then he told us, if we forgive not men their trespasses, neither
will the Father forgive our trespasses. And then John wrote, if we confess
our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse
us from all unrighteousness. So we've got to dismiss that.
Who serveth born of God? He's not saying here he never
does sin. He doesn't love sin. But he's
saying one of two things here. That old nature, now this is
true. I don't know whether this is what it's saying or not, but
this is one application that can be given here, which is true.
It doesn't violate the scriptures at all. That old nature that
I have can do no good. My new nature can do no wrong.
I have a nature in my flesh dwelleth no good thing, no good thing.
But that divine nature is a divine nature. It has no sin. And when
this old nature is laid aside and this old flesh is laid aside,
I will be made up of only that divine nature of perfect love
and perfect holiness and perfect righteousness. Now here's another
application. This is what it means too. Whosoever
is born of God does not practice sin. That's what we're saying. A man told me some time ago about
something that's common practice here in this area. And everywhere,
he said. I said, what's that? He said,
stealing. Stealing from the plant where you work. He talked about
where he worked. And men would take copper wire, you know, and
copper's pretty valuable, and they'd wrap it around them and
put their coats every way in the world to figure out how to
bring things out of that company. And they didn't see anything
wrong with deacons and preachers and all these fellas. Stole from
the company. Just stole from them. And somebody
asked them, I work for them, you know. It's my pencils and
all this steel. In fact, the company's going
to have to put one of these beepers up like in airports that people
go through. They're losing hundreds of thousands
of dollars. Just everything. Well, now this
is what we've done. The child of God, the man who's
born again. I'm not saying he's perfect,
but he's not he's not gonna make practice of things like that
You see what I'm saying? He just he does not that's not
his style. That's not his direction. That's
not his principle And who serve is born of God does not practice
things like that. He just doesn't practice those
things and He has a direction of honesty He has a direction
of truth. He tells the truth. Man, it lies
all the time. It just lies and lies and lies.
He's not born again. He's not born again. I know all men are liars. The
scripture says, let God be true and every man a liar. That's
so. We exaggerate and there's none of us actually. You say,
well, I'm going to tell the truth tomorrow. Yeah, and your wife
puts on that new coat and says, how do I look? Go ahead and tell
her. The better part of virtue and
valor both is to say you look good. That's a lie, too, huh? He gets a new hairdo, you know,
picking on the ladies. He says, how do I look? Oh, just
beautiful. Just beautiful. Tell the truth,
why don't you? Well, it's dangerous. But I'm
talking about, ladies and gentlemen, you know what I'm talking about,
the child of God. He just doesn't practice deceit. He just doesn't do it. He just
doesn't do it. He loves righteousness and doesn't
justify sin. He just doesn't do it. Now, I'm
not compromising that verse. I'm trying to tell you the truth
about it.