If you'll open your Bibles to the Gospel of John, chapter 2, verse 23. And we're going to the Lord wills, I want to deal with the subject of you must be born again. Theology is the study of God's Word. The study of God's Word. And we have in chapter 3 of John, the highest statement of theology in the Word of God, and it is not John 3.16. It is, you must be born again. So I want to read to you the text that I want to deal with, and then I'll make some comments on it. I have a lot of notes, but I hope I won't need them. In John chapter 2 verse 23, Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover, doing the feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs, which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself to them because he knew all, and men as in which means it's not in the original text. He knew all. He knew all men, of course. And he had no need that anyone should testify of man, for he knew what was in man. Eight out of ten of the translations that I generally look at have the word now. I believe it's proper to put the word now. And sometimes chapter divisions get in our way. They're not inspired, you know, the chapter divisions. I love to have them because If I had to take a big scroll and roll it out and find the passage of Scripture, it would be difficult for me. So the chapters and the verses are very helpful. But they are fairly modern. They only came on the scene about 500 years ago. Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God. For no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him." Now, if you were able to see my Bible that I study and try to preach from, you'll find that I have some significant words here, and there are plays on words in this passage. And in my Bible, I've got circles around these words and then lines that connect them. And I think it'll help you understand the passage if you see how these play on words occur. We've already seen one up here in verse 25, man. And then I draw a little line down to verse one. Now, there was a man. We'll deal with that in just a few minutes more fully. But I just want to call your attention and hope that you can begin to see these connections of words and how the Lord is using them. Verse 3, Jesus answered and said to him, and I like the original better than most of the translations, Amen, Amen. The double Amen. And the writer of John's Gospel is the only writer that uses the double Amen. And it means that the one speaking is speaking from God when he says Amen. So be it. Let it be. Amen, Amen. You have various translations, verily, verily, truly, truly, most assuredly, amen, amen. That's what is being said. I say unto you, now, the Pharisee had said unless, God is with him, you can't do these miracles, these signs. Jesus said, most assuredly, I say to you, unless, A man is born again. Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. My brother in the Sunday School lesson talked about circumcision of the heart. That's another term for being born again. Born from above. The new birth. They all refer to regeneration. Regeneration by the Holy Spirit, by the sovereign Holy Spirit. A man who is dead, a man and a woman are a woman who is dead. What does that mean, dead? Why does the Bible use a word like dead? Not injured, not weak, not lame. Dead in trespasses and sin. A dead person cannot do anything. So, a spiritually dead person cannot do anything toward God. They must be made alive. They must be born again. Nicodemus said to him, and I want you to know who Nicodemus is, a Pharisee. Who were the Pharisees? They were the conservatives of their day. There were two parties of religious people in this time, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Sadducees didn't believe in life after death, they didn't believe in angels, they didn't believe in spiritual matters. The Pharisees believed it all. They believed the Word of God, they just didn't understand it, for the most part. So you have a Pharisee. Paul the Apostle, Saul of Tarsus, was a Pharisee. They knew the letter of the law. But where they stumbled is most of it that came at it as literalist. So here's Nicodemus. We're already told that he is a ruler of the Jews. Later he'll be called the teacher, the master. He is the most prominent teacher of the Jews. Nicodemus is lost. He's gone about as far as he can go in religion, and he's lost. In fact, over in chapter 8, Jesus tells some of these same people that you don't know God. Can you imagine that? The most religious people that probably ever walked the face of the earth, Jesus says, you don't know God. So all of the outward trappings, enlarging their phylacteries, the little leather pouches where they put scriptures in, and the hems of their, the borders of their garments, and all of that outward show. And that's what it was. It was outward religion. What? Let me, let me stand on the corner and pray so you can hear me praying. Let me, let me let you look at what I'm doing. And they were highly respected men. But they were lost. They were lost because Jesus said, you must be born again. And you must be born again. So the literalist, Nicodemus, said to him in verse four, how can a man be born when he's old? He heard what Jesus said. Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? He's dumbfounded. This teacher, he's respecting Jesus, he came to him by night, and you can read all kinds of commentaries on what that means. I think I know what it means. It was night in the heart of Nicodemus. It was night in Israel. It was dead religion. For 400 years it had been dead. And John the Baptist comes on the scene, the forerunner. Isaiah prophesied about him. The Lord Jesus, who is six months younger than John the Baptist, and Jesus comes walking out of the wilderness temptation, and John the Baptist points to him and says, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Now, that does not mean everybody is going to be saved. The world, in the context of John the Apostle, the writer, is everybody who is saved. To the Jew, you were either a Jew or a non-Jew. Jew or Gentile. Jew or barbarian. Jew or Greek. So, Jesus is the Savior of the world. Because He's the only Savior there is. There's only one gospel. So if anybody's saved, the Lord's the Savior, Jesus Christ. Don't get John the Baptist and John the Apostle confused now, but when John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him, he said, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He was saying more than just, This is Messiah. He was saying, This is Messiah. This is the one. the one I was sent to be the forerunner, to proclaim. But how many lambs had been slain up to this time? Millions of lambs and goats and ox had been slain. The blood had been shed. All of that pointing to the Lamb of God. Here is the Lamb of God, capital L. He is the Lamb. And John is saying, besides that just he is Messiah, he's saying this is the end of all this Old Testament system. Old Testament system given by God. But it's over. It's over. The Christ is here. Messiah is here. So it was night in the heart of Nicodemus. And it was night in Israel. Get these out of my way. Jesus answered, I'm in, I'm in. I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is among you. Now see, he has used the word unless. We know that unless God is with you, you can't do these signs. And Jesus said, unless one is born again. And now he repeats himself in verse 5, and he says, Amen, Amen, unless one is born of water and the Spirit. Now people have stumbled all over this. The little word and is a Greek word chi, and it can be translated a half a dozen different ways. It can be translated, although, thus, but. It can also be translated, even. So what I believe is being said here, that the water of the Spirit, born of water, and then he is explaining what it means to be born of water. Even the Spirit. John uses in chapter 7, Chapter 4, chapter 7, he uses water metaphorically as of the spirit. So, you must be born of water, that is, that spiritual cleansing, and then he explains that even the spirit, and unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Now, Nicodemus, the answer to your question, Can a man enter his second time in his mother's room and be born? He says, verse 6, that which is born of flesh is flesh. You were born of flesh. I was born of flesh. I was born in trespasses and dead in trespasses and sins. I was born like my daddy Adam became. And so were you. And that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Then he says, Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. Nicodemus? I believe the Lord expected this master in Israel, this ruler in Israel, to know something. He should have known something about regeneration. If you'll turn to Ezekiel 36, now old Nicodemus could have quoted this passage. He knew it by heart, but he didn't know what it meant. Verse 25 of Ezekiel 36, pull it back to 24. And I will take you from among the nations, the Gentiles, gather you out of all countries, and bring you to your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart. Circumcision of the heart. and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will keep my judgments and do them." Nicodemus, you ought to have known something about the sprinkling of water, the spirit, metaphorically of the spirit, and Nicodemus didn't. So, now Jesus is going to tell him how sovereign the new birth is. One of the most, probably the most famous evangelist of our time wrote a book, and the title of the book was How to be Born Again. I can tell you he does not know how to be born again. You can see the effect of it. If a person is born again, it's not going to be a secret. Their life is going to show something. There's going to be some improvement. But how this old sinner, a long time ago now, was born again, I can't tell you. I know what was going on. I was listening to the gospel. I didn't want to hear it. I didn't want to believe it. But this word was the truth, and I didn't want it to be the truth. And I won't go into my testimony except that it brought me to my knees in tears. And I said, Lord, I can't fight you anymore. I ought to be in hell. If you send me to hell, you'll be right. But I need mercy. And you gave me mercy. Not because I prayed something, not because I got on my knees, but because the Holy Spirit had taken the Word of God and began to teach this old sinner what it meant to be a sinner. The old Apostle Paul, when he was Saul of Tarsus, he says that he didn't know what the law meant. He didn't know what it meant to be covetous until the law said to him not to covet. And then that which he thought was to make him alive, the law, it killed him. And Saul, as a Pharisee, could have written a big book on covetousness. And every bit of it would have been true, except he didn't think he was covetous. That's what happens when the law of God is applied to the sinner's heart. They'll go around and say, and I said things like this stupid, I said things like, well I might as well be in hell, all my friends are going to be there. How stupid can you be? To make light, to trivialize something as serious as eternal fire, eternal punishment. And that's how stupid a man is when he's not saved. So Jesus is going to explain to Nicodemus, about the sovereignty of the Spirit in the new birth. Verse 8. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. Now, I want to point out one little thing here. It goes back to this verse 5, of born of water, even the Spirit, There's only one new birth. There's not a new birth of water and a new birth of the Spirit. And from that point on, it only refers to the Spirit, born of the Spirit. So I think that enforces what I believe is the right interpretation of verse 5. The little word, and, is even. But the wind blows where it wishes. You go out here on a windy day, and you see the effect of it. You see the trees, the leaves moving on the trees. Around Alabama, where I live, sometimes you see the trees blown down. You see the effect of it. But you don't know where that wind's coming from, and you don't know where it's going. Meteorologists can measure it all, but they can't tell you where it's coming from and where it's going. And so what Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, Nicodemus, you must be born again, but this act of God is as sovereign as the wind, and you are not in control of it. Nicodemus, verse 9, answered and said to him, How can these things be? Nicodemus, I believe now, the Lord's beginning to tug at his heart, and he came as a very respected teacher, the master in Israel, and the Lord says some things to him that utterly baffle him. a series of discussions I had with a particular church, pastor, minister, who says that denies the Holy Spirit's active in regeneration. They say that if you can just accept the principles here, repent and be baptized, that then you'll be saved. But they say the Holy Spirit's through. He gave this book, and then He's gone. And I had hours of discussion with this man, especially around this passage here. And he never could see it, and he never could explain it. Because to him, that water up there was water baptism. And that's how you get born again, is you jump in the pool. Nicodemus didn't understand it. Verse 10, Jesus answered and said to him, Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? Jesus is kind of tugging on him a little bit. There's some things you should know, Nicodemus. You're the teacher of Israel. You're the master, and you don't know these things. And you should know about regeneration. You should know about the sprinkling of water. Even the Spirit. Then, verse 11, Amen, Amen, I say to you, we speak what we know. And I could spend some time on who the we are. I believe it's the Holy Trinity. Jesus is speaking here, but he's speaking in the plural. We know some things. You said you know. We know. And testify what we have seen, and you do not receive our witness. You see the plural words here? Verse 12. If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? Earthly things I believe. Again, Nicodemus, the Pharisee, he knew all about the writings of Moses. But what did Jesus tell the Pharisees in chapter 5? If you believed Moses, you'd believe me, because Moses wrote about me. Now, the little bit of the Sunday School lesson I heard this morning, I thoroughly agreed with what he was saying. But I want to add something here. When Paul opened up the book of Romans, he said it was the Holy Scriptures that revealed Jesus Christ. The book of Romans was a similar statement. The prophets. The law. And you know what Jesus said when he was talking to those two on the road to Emmaus. He opened the Scriptures to them. The Scriptures is the Old Testament. The Scriptures. And if a man can't preach the Gospel out of the Old Testament, it's because he doesn't know the Gospel. Because it's about Christ. It's all about Christ. So if you don't know the earthly things, you don't understand what Moses wrote about, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? You're not quite ready, Nicodemus, to know about heavenly things, but it's about to happen. It's about to happen. The Lord is merciful. has ascended to heaven, but he who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven." I want you to turn to Proverbs chapter 30. I want you to see this in your Bible. Here's another passage that Nicodemus would have quoted, but not know what it meant. And barring a phrase from Charles Alexander, there's about to be an earthquake in the soul of Nicodemus. He's about to be quickened, born again. Now, the word, I'm taking a little liberty here because it doesn't say specifically that Nicodemus was born again at this point. But we know that later in John's gospel that he defends Jesus against the Pharisees, against the council. And he says, do we judge a man without hearing him? And they said, well, then you're one of his disciples. And they jumped on him. And then we know this Nicodemus was one of the two that came and took the body down off the cross. So I believe Nicodemus. I can't prove that he was born again at this point, but I think this is it. I want you to see the connection here in verse 13, what Jesus said to this man and what he would know, what he would make the connection to. No one has ascended to heaven, but he who came down from heaven, that is the Son of Man who is in heaven. Now look over here in Proverbs 30. The words of Agur, the son of Jaketh, his utterance, This man deferred to Ithiel and Euclid. Now, I've got some notes on that. I won't go into those now, but those words have some meaning. But here's where it is. Here's Nicodemus. Surely I am more stupid than any man, and do not have the understanding of a man. I neither learned wisdom, nor have knowledge of the Holy One. I don't know what you're talking about, Jesus. And you're standing there acting like I'm supposed to know. I am more stupid than any man. And then Jesus quotes this. He says, "...who has descended into heaven," or descended, "...who has gathered the wind in his fist." The wind blows where it wants to. You see the connections that Jesus is making to this man. That's starting to open up to him. who has bound the waters in a garment, who has established all the ends of the earth, what is his name, and what is his Son's name, if you know?" Welcome, Nicodemus, to the redeemed of the Lord. To the redeemed of the Lord, say, Amen. Amen. It's just not even eleven o'clock by my time. I'm going to wrap this up. I could go on with no boast of my own. I preach John's gospel and I do this. This is my style. Different preachers have different ways to do things. They preach the Bible, but I take a verse at a time, just verse by verse by verse, and I spent Three and a half years in John's Gospel, for whatever that's worth. There's a progression that I saw coming. I didn't plan it this way, but I think the Spirit of God led me this way. Through John's Gospel, I preached Jonah. And I could go into why I did that next. And then I was led to start a series on Revelation. Before I got to John, I preached a hundred sermons in Romans. I didn't start out to say, okay, I'm going to preach a hundred sermons. I just preached Romans, and I got through it with a hundred sermons. But that's how I do it. I mean, I'm not saying that's the only way to do it, but I believe that if you do expositional preaching, the preacher learns a lot, and then he's able to pass these things on. If I start out, and I'm not putting down, believe me, I'm not putting down topical preaching. Charles Spurgeon was a topical preacher. So that's not wrong, it's just a different style. But if you take a book of the Bible and you preach through it, then you're going to declare, as this brother pointed out, the whole counsel of God. Because you're not going to be able to say, well, I don't really like to talk about that, so I'm going to skip that. If you're going to preach the book, you preach through the book. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. Now, you know the allusion here, back over to Numbers. The people were getting bit by serpents, fiery serpents, and they were dying. And the Lord told Moses, you make an image of that serpent. Make a brass image of it. And you put it up on a pole, and you tell them, if you look, you'll live. Well, that's silly. I'm bit by a serpent, and you want me to look at something on a pole? What's good for that dude? We'll go on and die. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so the Son of Man must be lifted up. Now, that doesn't mean exalted and so on. It means put on a pole. You put on a pole like that serpent. That thing which stood for sin, that brass image that stood for sin, that was put on a pole and you were told to look and live, the Lord Jesus, with no sin of his own, was made to be sin. Martin Lloyd-Jones says he was put in the rank and order of sinners. And my sin, and if you are redeemed, your sin, was put on Him. And when He was lifted up, that sin was dealt with. And Jesus will say later in chapter 8, if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins. Options we have. We live and live, believe Jesus Christ, believe the gospel, repent, or we go to hell. I really just don't want to take the time. John 3.16, most quoted and most misunderstood, I believe, verse in the Bible, but it qualifies itself. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes, who are the whoever? Those that are born again by the sovereign Spirit of God. Those that were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. But in time, they will come to Christ. Election is not salvation. It's election unto salvation. If you are elect, while you still breathe in this life, you will confess Christ. You will come to Christ. And if you truly confess Christ, you'll live like it. Your life will be changed. Not perfection, but there'll be improvement. There'll be improvement. And you'll repent. And you'll continue. I write papers for Mount Zion Bible Institute. And the brother mentioned the free grace broadcaster that he got back from Mr. Bell, and that's who publishes the free grace broadcaster now, Mt. Zion Chapel Libraries. If you want to get it, it's free. They'll give it to you for free. But in one of the questions in one of the studies that I grade, the question is, how long does repentance last? And the best answer Not for me, but one of the prisoners. He said, until you sin again. That's how long it lasts, until you sin again. Then you repent. Then you sin. Then you repent. But if you stop repenting, you're in big trouble. You're in big trouble. Our Father, I do praise you and thank you for this day. And I thank you for these people who have been so faithful to come and support their pastor. I'm thankful, Lord, that you've given him healing. And I'm thankful that you give Patsy the strength to uphold. And I thank you, Lord, that you do have a witness in this community. You have a gospel station scattered about, and I thank you for that. I thank you, Lord, that I can claim to be part of one. And I'm amazed, oh Lord, you say in your word, Behold what manner of love that we should be called the children of God. It is amazing love. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Thank you. Amen.