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Regeneration The Wall Between God and Man
BD02-01© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1971)
The Blocks of the Wall
We continue with the third in the series of the studies
concerning the great wall between God and man. Here we have thus far a summary of the
problems that exist between us and God. This wall we have divided into five
basic blocks. The first one that we looked at was sin. We saw that God moved in and
removed this block by the great work of redemption. The next problem was
penalty which is spiritual death. We saw that again God moved in and through the
death of His son, He removed this problem by the work of expiation. Jesus Christ
died spiritually and thereby paid for our penalty.
Physical Birth
This morning we look at
the third of these blocks which is physical birth—the problem of the
old sin nature. Now whatever man may try to do he simply cannot get through this wall. This
is an impossible barrier. He’s on the other
side of it, and there is nothing he can do until God has removed it. So
this morning we look at this next block. Sin removed by redemption, penalty
removed by expiation. Now what will we do about the problem of our physical
birth?
Birth itself on the physical level is a
miracle. It is a marvel of divine wisdom and God controls the mystery
of physical birth. Psalm 127 reminds us that every baby that comes into
the world is under the directive control of God Himself. Psalm 127:3 says,
“Lo, children are a heritage from the Lord and the fruit of the womb is His
reward.” So, there is some basis for the idea which is very popular among the Jews that to
be blessed with children is to have upon you the hand of God’s
blessing, the sign of God’s approval. To have children denied is a certain sign
of God’s disapproval. Whatever the case may be, to have children is a sign of
God’s touch upon your life because it is a miracle that He is directly in
charge of. So, a newborn infant is always a sight and a thing of delight, but he
has a problem.
Spiritual Death
The moment that he was born he entered a problem. His physical birth gave this child a basic problem
with God. That is he was born physically alive, but he was born spiritually dead.
The moment that he took his first breath, something happened in his being
and he died spiritually. Ephesians 2:1 speaks of us as those who have been
made alive who have been dead in trespasses in sin. This refers to the fact of our
spiritual condition. Since we are spiritually dead, we have this
problem of fellowship with God. It has created a wall between us and there is no
way through it. So, every baby is born here on the wrong side of this wall.
He is born separated from God. He has earthly life, but he has no spiritual
life whatsoever.
With our bodies, we are able to contact the world around us through our senses. Our bodies act as the
house for the soul. Because of our soul, we can understand natural truths. The
soul is the real person, the ego. But man is absolutely unable to grasp
spiritual realities. It makes no difference how educated, how cultured, how
refined, or how anything else you may be. There is no way around the problem that
you are born spiritually dead. Therefore, we have no possible ground of contact
with God. 1 Corinthians 2:14 says, “But the natural man, that is the
unsaved man, the man as he is born spiritually dead receives not the things of the spirit of
God for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them because they
are spiritually discerned.” It takes a human spirit that is alive
to be able to grasp and understand the things of God.
Here’s a very serious problem. Man
is born spiritually dead. Why? Well because the parents in the process
of generating the life of that child give him a bad feature. They are
unable to keep from passing on something of themselves to this child. That thing
is the old sin nature. This old sin nature is the thing that causes spiritual
death. Romans 5:12 says, “Wherefore as by one man, that is Adam, sin
entered into the world and death by sin.” Now this is not only physical death,
but it is also spiritual death. So, death passed upon all man as all sin. So, we are
born in this condition of spiritual death. A parent may be a very fine
Christian. They may be very godly parents, but they cannot pass on their spiritual
lives. This spiritual life has to come in a different way. It has to come from
being born from a different father and being born into a different family. That is
to be born into the family of God. John 3:6 says, “That which is
born of the flesh, physical birth produces physical results. That which is born of the
spirit is spirit.” A spiritual birth produces spiritual results. 1
Peter 1:23 in speaking of this same problem says, “being born again not of
corruptible seed,” a spiritual birth is not of corruptible seed such as natural birth is,
“but of incorruptible by the word of God which lives and abides
forever.”
Regeneration
So, here’s the situation that we
face in this particular block. Everybody needs a birth which gives him
spiritual life in addition to the physical birth that he already has.
Until he has that spiritual birth, there is no way back to God. So
what’s the divine solution for that? The divine solution for that is
“regeneration”. This word is used twice in the Bible. The Greek word,
“polyguinesea”. The first part means
“again” and “guineses” such as
we get the word “genesis” for the book of
Genesis means “origins” or “beginnings”. The English word
“regeneration” comes from the Latin “generation” means
“birth.” The “re” means
“again”. So, what we have here is a word that basically means to be “born
again”-a new birth. “Polyguinesea” is only used twice in the Bible.
Once is in Titus 3:5 “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy,
He saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy
Spirit.” Here the new birth refers to the individual soul. It’s used again
in Matthew 19:28. Matthew 19:28 refers to the rebirth of all of creation. Matthew 19:28,
“and Jesus said unto them ‘Verily I send to you He who have
followed me in the regeneration when the son of man shall sit on the throne of His glory,
He also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of
Israel.’“ Here the word refers to the restoration of creation and of God’s
natural order.
While this word is only used twice, there are other terms in the Bible that mean the same thing as
regeneration. Here are a few of them. “Born again”- John 3:3 and
1 Peter 1:23, “Born of God” “Begot or Begotten”- 1 John 5:1, “Born of
the spirit”- John 3:6, and “Quickened or to be made alive”- John 5:21, Ephesians 2:5. So, what
regeneration does is to make twice born men. Everyone is born into the world spiritually dead
because of the presence of the old sin nature inherited through your father.
Therefore, everybody needs a new birth. He needs a new father. He needs to be born
into a new family. He needs to receive a new nature which is spiritually alive.
So, here’s what God does. He doesn’t reform the old sin nature. Instead
He gives you a new nature to dominate the old sin nature. The sin nature is not removed
until you come to the point of death or to the rapture. When you are in the
Lord’s presence, it is permanently removed. In the meantime, God simply gives
you a new structure of life to solve the problem of this particular barrier.
Spiritually dead, I need to have a rebirth. How am I going to do it?
Nicodemus
Turn to John 3 you have an excellent illustration. Here’s the story of Nicodemus, a very
religious man, and an authority among the Jews. “There was a man of the
Pharisees named Nicodemus who was a ruler of the Jew.” Nicodemus was the kind
of religious man who prayed and who went to the synagogue several times a day. He worked
hard at good deeds. Now the question is can such a nice and sincere man need a
new birth? That’s the question concerning the nice and sincere
people that live up and down our streets in our neighborhoods. The people we rub shoulders
with at work. The people we have social contacts with. These nice, sincere
people- is it possible that they need a new birth? They’re intelligent,
educated, and honest.
A spiritual birth comes hardest to the religious crowd. It is the church members that find spiritual birth
the hardest to accept because they have a mistaken concept concerning their
condition. So it is that all over this city there are people who are sitting in
church this morning and if they were to drop dead in that pew, their souls would
immediately go into Hades. There are people all over this city who are
members of churches who are completely oblivious to the fact that they sit in
those churches at this very moment spiritually dead.
Now that’s the condition of Nicodemus. If you were to meet with Nicodemus in the synagogue someday and say,
“Nicodemus, you know if you were to drop dead right here, you would go to
hell?” He would look at you in the most appalling unbelief and say, “Do you
know who you’re talking to? I’m not only a Pharisee, but I happen to be one of the
rulers here. I’m one of the wheels. I’m a VIP in this synagogue. Are you trying to
tell me that I would go into the presence of Satan rather than God?”
That’s exactly what Jesus was saying. It is the hardest for the religious church attending crowd
of all people on the face of the Earth to come to the experience of new birth.
So, here’s this VIP. He has sins of pride, sins of his legalism,
all of which hinder his belief. But he comes to Jesus for some reason.
“The same came to Jesus by night and said unto Him, ‘Rabbi, we know that thou
are a teacher come from God for no man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be
with him.” Nicodemus came to Him at night we are told probably
because he was so busy hustling around with his religious rituals all day long he
didn’t have time to see the Lord during the day. Finally, when he got through going
through his religious malarkey, he had time to stop by to see the Lord at
night.
Born Again
The things that caught his attention were the miracles. The miracles were used to focus attention
upon the message of Jesus Christ. Nicodemus however doesn’t recognize
that he is speaking to God or even to one who could be his Messiah. He simply
calls Him “Rabbi, teacher”. “We know that you come
from God because of the miracles that you do. There is a power upon you.” He doesn’t say,
“I see that you are God. I see that you are the Messiah as demonstrated by this supernatural
power.” He simply says, “You’ve got some kind of a contact
with God and I’m interested in it. I’m a religious leader myself and I’m curious
to know what your contact with God is that enables you to perform these fantastic
miracles.” So, verse 3, “Jesus answered and said unto him ‘Verily, verily I
say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
So, Jesus comes right to the point. He says to this religious church attending gentleman “there
is no place for you in Heaven. There is no place for a religiously active person who lacks
a spiritual birth.” Nicodemus, with all that he knew of the Old
Testament Scriptures, did not understand. He did not realize that because of his old
sin nature that he received from his parents that he was on the wrong side of
the wall and could not approach God at all. He was born in trespasses, born dead
in trespasses and sins. So, his natural birth had put him into the wrong family.
Genesis 5:3 tells us that Adam reproduced, had a son after his own kind, in his own image. 1
Corinthians 15:22 the first part of the verse tells that in Adam, all die. Now Nicodemus
had not grasped the fact that because of what he had inherited from his
parents, he was in serious trouble with God. Natural birth gave him the wrong father.
Every one of you who are outside of the family of God, who have never experienced
a new birth, your condition is exactly the same as Nicodemus. You are in the
wrong family. You have a wrong father. You have Satan as your father. In John
8:44, Jesus said to a group of religious leaders, “Ye are of your father
the devil and the lusts of your father, ye will do.” Then in 1 John 3:10: “In
this the children of God are manifest and the children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of
God, neither he that loves not his brother.” So, if
you’re born on the wrong side of the wall, you’re born into the wrong family, you’re
born of the wrong father. Now Nicodemus was absolutely blind to the spiritual truth, to any kind
of spiritual truth and the fact that he was unable to enter into the
kingdom of God.
So, if you’re spiritually dead this morning, on the authority of the word of God, we tell you that you
cannot obey God, you cannot understand God, you cannot please God, and you cannot
come to God. This pretty well slams the door shut and about this time you might
be saying, “Well what hope is there?” The answer is
that there is no hope whatsoever for you. The moment you took that first breath after your
birth, your spiritual death experience, because of the sin nature that you had
inherited, finished you with God once and for all, unless, God does
something to solve the problem for you. You have absolutely no way to solve this
problem. You are dead. If you have any
doubts about this, I suggest you stop by a few of the funeral parlors here in
Irving and talk to a few of the corpses around and you encourage them to do a
few things. You just go up and tell the corpses, “Now you look
like a pretty good, husky fellow. If you just try hard enough, you can get up and just
forget this whole thing. Now get up here and just move around. What you need is
some exercise--that’s why you are where you are.” Now you just
give this corpse a good pep talk and see what he can do for himself.
Now that’s the same condition that
you’re in spiritually. There’s no amount of pep
talk and no amount of interesting stories that we can tell you in church and make you cry. We
could do that. We could tell you all kinds of things that could get you
emotionally high, then maybe you could walk an aisle, you’d raise a hand,
sign a card, and you might even promise to love your mother more. But none of this would
serve one bit. You see, you’re dead and it provides nothing in
standing before God.
Nicodemus is absolutely blind. If you refuse to meet this requirement of having a new birth-
that’s what it takes. If you refuse to have a new birth, to get across this wall to
meet God, then I would suggest that you forget all the hypocrisy of attending
church and all the religious rituals. I would suggest that you would enjoy
anything and everything you can before you experience the hell that is ahead of you.
If you refuse to take steps to secure this new birth, you’d better
enjoy what you can because you will never come across this wall with God. When death
passes, you will never meet Him- except as your Judge.
So, verse 4 in John 3, “Nicodemus
said unto him, ‘How can a man be born again if he is old? Can
he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be
born?’“ Now Nicodemus by this statement proves what
Jesus has been saying that he is spiritually dead. This man is so far
from being able to grasp any spiritual realities, to understand spiritual
things at all, that when Jesus says, “You have to be born again
Nicodemus, that’s your problem.” Right away Nicodemus thinks in physical, natural
terms. There are two people that do this. The unsaved person thinks in physical, natural
terms, and the carnal Christian does. The carnal Christian and the unsaved have
this in common. They think in physical action, natural terms. The more carnal
you are, the more physical, natural, materialistic terms you think in.
That’s why Jesus says there are two people that have a real tough time getting into
heaven: the person who is wealthy, and the person who is religious. The religious
and the wealthy find it almost impossible to experience a new birth.
So, Nicodemus is a ruler, a leader, a religious leader, and yet he misses the boat completely. You might
say, “Well, could he have understood this? Is this a little unfair
to say? Because a little later, Nicodemus shakes his head in verse 9 and says,
‘How can these things be? I don’t understand this.’ Jesus says,
‘Are you a teacher of Israel and know not these things?’ and you wonder, ‘Could
Nicodemus have known this?’” Yes, he could have. Turn to Ezekiel in the Old Testament, Ezekiel 36:24,
here is an interesting summary of the very things that Jesus is telling this
man. “For I will take you from among the nations and gather you out of all
countries and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water
upon you and ye shall be clean from all your infirmities and from all your idols
will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you. And a new spirit will I
put within you. I will take away the stony heart of your flesh and give you
a heart of flesh that’s alive- one that’s living.” Now what you have here is a
statement, an actual statement from the Old Testament of the very
things that Jesus is talking to Nicodemus about here in the third chapter of John.
So, this man, had he understood what the prophets had written, would have
understood what Jesus was talking about. So, Jesus in verse 5, decides to use words
that have spiritual connotation to Nicodemus. Words such as these from
Ezekiel that Nicodemus should be able to associate with spiritual reality. Verse 5 says,
“Verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born of water, and of the
spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
Born of Water and the Spirit
What Jesus is doing is explaining what He meant by “born again” in verse 3. To be
born again means that a man has to be born of water and of the spirit. Otherwise, you cannot enter into
the kingdom of God. What does it mean to be born of water? In the Bible,
water is used in both a literal sense, literal H2O, and when it is, the context
will indicate that it is literal H2O. Or it will be used in a spiritual
sense. It will have a spiritual meaning. Here in this passage, the literal sense
is not indicated. Jesus is not talking about literal things. He is trying to
convey spiritual, non-literal things. This water is not water baptism as some
people try to make it out to be- which in itself would be contrary to other
areas of the word of God. Water baptism is not an element that brings regeneration.
Water
Now water is used in the Bible in a symbolic way in a certain way. Sometimes the Bible speaks of water in
terms of the gospel or salvation. You find that in Isaiah 55:1 where he says,
“To everyone that thirsts, come to the waters, and he that hath no money,
come, buy and eat. Ye come, buy wine and milk without money, without
price.” He is speaking there about salvation and he is comparing it to water. In
Revelation 22:17, “and the Spirit and the bride say
‘come’, and let him that hears say ‘come’, and let him that is of thirst, come, and
whosoever let him take the water of life freely.” Here the water of life means
salvation.
The second way that water is used symbolically is for the word of God. Ephesians 5:26 is an excellent
example of this. Ephesians 5:26, “that he might sanctify and cleanse it
with the washing of the water by the word.” Now every place that the word
water is used symbolically it has the idea of cleansing in some way. Here it speaks
of washing of the water by the word- that is the word of God having a
cleansing effect. 1 Peter 1:23, “Being born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God which lives and abides
forever.” Here the word has the cleansing effect. The word of God is used as water.
A third use is that water sometimes stands for God the Holy Spirit. John 7:37: “In the last day,
that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out saying, ‘If any man
thirsts, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me as the scripture has said
‘out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water’. But this spoke
He of the Spirit whom they that believe on Him should receive for the Holy Spirit was
not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.” So, here we have
indicated the word “water” used in a symbolic way for the Holy Spirit.
Back to John 3:5: Which word was used here? Since Jesus is speaking of spiritual reality, that’s what He’s
trying to get across to this man, He’s not talking about doing something with something
material so it’s not literal water. He is speaking not about salvation. Water does not mean
salvation. We can cancel that one out because this is the subject of
the whole passage. He gets specifically down to the issue of salvation a little
later. It isn’t God the Holy Spirit because that comes in the next
phrase, “born of the water and of the Spirit”. So, that leaves only one more and
that’s the word of God. That is what Jesus is speaking of here. When He says, “A
man has to be born of water”, He means he has to be cleansed with the
cleansing effect of the word of God. This, of course, is in keeping with everything else the
scripture has to say concerning salvation. Everyone who is saved, everyone
whoever comes to salvation, has the gospel brought to him, directly or indirectly in
some way. Otherwise, he cannot be born again. The apostle Paul said to his
Corinthian Christians, “For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ,
ye have not yet many fathers. For in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.”
Information
The point here is that Jesus says that if you’re going to have the new birth, it is impossible
without information from the word of God. You must have the information of the
gospel received directly by reading the word or having someone reading it to
you. Romans 10:17 says, “So, then faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God.” You cannot have faith without the word of God. Now the
other factor is of the spirit which refers, of course, to the active role of the Holy Spirit
in the miracle of regeneration. The person who is not a Christian has a body
and he has a soul, but his spirit is dead. He does not have a spirit. You
contact the world about you through your body. You are conscious toward people with
your soul, but you can only reach God with your spirit. This is why
it’s impossible for a person who is born spiritually dead to solve the problem. How am
I going to contact God? How am I going to understand the gospel? This was
Nicodemus’ condition. At this point John 16:7-11 tell us that God the Holy Spirit
comes in and He acts for your dead human spirit and brings to your mentality and
your soul an understanding and conviction concerning the gospel.
That’s the only thing that the Holy Spirit does for an unbeliever. The unsaved person
has no contact with God the Holy Spirit except as He comes in and He
substitutes for your dead human spirit at this point to make this spiritual truth alone
clear. You see unless this were made clear, you cannot be born again. So, an
unsaved person cannot comprehend the gospel.
Romans 3:10 confirms this when it says, “As it is written, there is none righteous, no not
one.” Verse 11, “there is none that understand it.” There is none that seek after
God. Nobody can understand the word of God. What God uses is His word to bring about
this cleansing. 1 Peter 1:23 again, “being born again, not of
corruptible seed,” which refers to the physical birth from your parents with their moral
corruption of the old sin nature which John 3:6 says, “that
which is of the flesh is flesh.” But of the incorruptible, by the word of
God, the incorruptible seed refers to the word of God as a spiritual seed.
Hebrews 4:12 says, “The word of God is a living thing,” so the
last part of John 3:6 says, “but that which is born of the spirit is spirit.” So, the word
reveals the need for another birth. It reveals to us our spiritually dead state. It reveals
to us the fact that we are under the sentence of eternal death. It reveals to
us the fact that there’s a rescue waiting through Jesus Christ. We
have to have a spiritual birth and it should not have surprised Nicodemus. Because you see if
you compare the Ezekiel passage, you notice the comparable words. Ezekiel
speaks about clean water and John speaks about water. Ezekiel speaks about a
new heart, and John speaks about the spirit. Ezekiel speaks about a new
spirit and John speaks about being born again, which is what a new spirit means.
All of this should have been clear to Nicodemus. Your first birth gave you a physical body with a soul.
Your second birth gives you a living, human spirit. Now John 3:8,
let’s carry the story a little farther. Jesus in verse 8 says, “Now this
experience in spiritual birth is like the wind, you can’t see it. You
observe the effects of its presence.” Then in verse 11 Jesus declares to Nicodemus
that he knows what he is talking about. “Verily, verily I say unto thee we speak
that which we do know and testify to that which we have seen, and ye receive not our
witness.” Jesus says, “You obviously don’t believe me, you
are negative toward what I’m saying, but I know what I’m talking about Nicodemus.
I’m not just another religious ritualist with a touch of truth and a mountain of spiritual
ignorance.” The Pharisees had gone negative on the doctrine
of salvation. Verse 12 says, “… if I have told you,” and
that’s a first-class condition “if”,
“if and I have told you of earthly things. I’ve illustrated this
and you’ve believed not. How shall you believe if I tell you about heavenly
things?” The answer is you won’t. You can’t believe about
heavenly things until you accept this first step that you must be born again.
Jesus is God
That raises one more question. What are the mechanics of regeneration? How has God removed the block for
me? Well if Nicodemus is to believe Jesus Christ, he has to first accept the
fact that Jesus has the unique position and a unique authority as a God-man.
That’s what the Lord does in verse 13. He says, “No man hath descended up
to heaven,” no man had been to heaven up to this point, “but He that came
down from heaven, even the son of man who is in heaven.” Jesus calls Himself
“the son of man” that stresses humanity. He says that He has come down from heaven, and
He is in heaven. Now you see what He is saying. He is saying,
“Nicodemus, you are looking at a person who is human, who has come down from heaven, though
no man has yet gone from heaven.” Now how can He say,” I
came down from heaven” when no human has come onto heaven? How can He say, “I am still in
heaven Nicodemus?” Nicodemus caught the point. He said, “Jesus, are you telling
me that you are God? Because only God can be omnipresent. Only God can be here talking
to me and still be in heaven.” “That’s right
Nicodemus, that’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
The communication was established. Jesus claims to be God, so Nicodemus has to trust Him. If his spiritual
death is to be removed, if Nicodemus is to be made alive, he has to trust in
the fact that Jesus Christ died spiritually for him on the cross. Now Jesus
didn’t do this yet, as of this point, so He had to illustrate it from the Old
Testament, verses 14- 15. Nicodemus knew this very well. “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.” If you’re going to have eternal life, you’re going to have to do like
those Israelites in the wilderness. You’re going to have to believe what God
said. Remember the story that the people were bitten by the poisonous serpents? Moses pled
to God for relief. God said to put up a pole and put a serpent made of brass
on the pole. Set it up in the camp, and tell anybody who has been bitten by a
poisonous snake if they look at that serpent, they will live. A lot of
people looked after the fact was given to them that if they would look
they’d live. A lot of people didn’t believe it, and they didn’t
look and they died. Those who lived were immediately healed.
Apparently, it hit Nicodemus because he was one of the pallbearers at Jesus’ funeral. He became a
believer. He saw what the Lord was talking about. He realized that those Israelites
didn’t do a thing but believed the facts that they were told. They did nothing to
solve their spiritual death but accept what God was telling them.
“Look at the serpent, and you will live.” They didn’t have to
work, they didn’t have to pray. Anybody that tells you that you need to pray to be saved is a
liar, or he’s badly mistaken, deluded although sincere people. Anybody
tell you to agonize to be saved? He’s way off base. To plead, to promise,
to join up, to pay up, the Israelites did none of these things. A fact was given to
them from God and they acted on the fact and that’s what
we’re trying to do with you. We’re giving you some facts concerning your spiritually dead
condition. God has removed this block through the death of His son, and He’s
asking you to believe it so that you may be born of this word and of the spirit.
The New Birth
1 Peter 1 gives the basis of this new birth. Verse 18 “For as much as ye know that you are not
redeemed with corruptible things like silver and gold from your vain manner of life
received by tradition from your fathers, from the precious blood,”
representing the spiritual death of Christ, ”as of a lamb without blemish and
without spot, who verily was ordained before the foundation of the world, but was
manifest in these last times for you who by Him do believe in God who raised Him up
from the dead and gave Him glory, that your faith and hope might be in
God.” You see when Jesus finished paying for your sins, God was satisfied and He
raised His son back to life. For He was guilty Himself of nothing, and therefore
He could not be held in death. He paid the price and then Himself was raised.
Alright, we sum up. The new birth was entirely grace planned. The Father planned it- John 1:13, James
1:18. The Son provided it- John 3:16-18, 5:21. The Holy Spirit performs it- John
3:5-6, Titus 3:5. What is our part? Because it’s all of grace,
it’s to simply accept the facts. Please remember that reformation is not regeneration, so
don’t worry about cleaning up your life and thinking that you’re going to
make points with God. All the social betterment programs of our times are a
misconception that society will be improved morally. Happy feelings or ecstatic
experiences that you may generate are not regeneration. All the rituals and church going
that you may perform is not regeneration.
The Fruits of Regeneration
Now there are some very beautiful and wonderful things that result from regeneration. One, you receive a
live human spirit. Two, you are given the eternal life of God Himself.
Three, you become a child of God. Four, you enter into God’s family.
Five, you become a joint-heir with Jesus Christ. Sixth, God becomes your Father. Seven,
you are made a new creation. If you’ve never received this savior, if
you’ve never concerned yourself with the fact that you are spiritually dead and you
need to do something about this, now is the time to do it. God has removed the
block and He’s pleading with you. He’s offering you the
opportunity to simply come across the wall and meet Him. There’s nothing standing
between you and God in reference to this block, except your refusal to accept the word of the
gospel and to permit the Holy Spirit to do His regenerating work upon your
dead human spirit. Wouldn’t you like to be spiritually alive? All you
have to do is look to the savior, and believe that what God said He did, is really true,
just as the Israelites looked at that serpent on that pole and they lived. You
may live, or you may die. The choice is entirely up to you.
John E. Danish 1971
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