My name is Zach Dodson, and I am from, as you can tell already, the United States. And I'm here in Australia, I live in Olverston. I'm the, I guess we would call it residential pulpit supply to the Olverston Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia Congregation. I'm a candidate in the PCEA, and I'm a candidate Much love to the PCA when I say this, but the wheels of Presbyterianism grind slowly, so I'm gonna be a candidate for a while longer yet. But I've been asked to be here and to speak to you all, and so I wanted to say it's a great privilege to be here, and I really look forward to getting to know you all, getting to know the EPC, seeing it all for myself, I've already been warned that you've got to be careful what you say to everybody's cousins, which actually reminds me of growing up back in the holler in Appalachia, where I was akin to about the whole county. So nothing to be worried about there. Well, there is one thing. Strings are more reserved. In America, they'll tell you you're wrong. Here, I'm a little afraid it won't happen. So anyway. In all seriousness, I'm really happy to be here, and I'd ask you, I'm not exactly sure how the order of this flows out, but I'll just kind of make it up as I go along. I'll ask you to go ahead and bring me your copy of God's Word to John chapter three. John chapter three. And we'll read in John chapter three, The first 13 verses, I'll also be jumping over to Ezekiel chapter 36 after we read this, but I'll give that to you in a moment. So, John chapter 3, beginning at verse 1. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou dost, except let God be with him. 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. Nicodemus saith unto him, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, 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. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I say unto thee, ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh. and whither it goeth, so is everyone that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen, and ye receive not our witness. If I told you of earthly things, and ye believe not, how should ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven. And there it is, our reading there, and I'll ask you to turn over to Ezekiel chapter 36, Ezekiel chapter 36. And there, to the end of the chapter. So Ezekiel chapter 36, verses 21 to 38. Verses 21 to 38. But I had pity for mine holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the heathen, whither they went. Therefore they say unto the house of Israel, thus saith the Lord God. I do not this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went. And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them, and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, Sayeth the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the heathen and gather you out of all the countries that will bring you to your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you. And a new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and ye shall keep my judgments and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers. And ye shall be my people and I will be your God. I will also save you from all your uncleanness and I will call for the corn and will increase it and lay no famine upon you and I will multiply the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen. Then shall ye remember your own evil ways and your doings that were not good and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations. Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord God, be it known unto you, be it shamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel. Thus saith the Lord God, in the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities, I will cause you to dwell in the cities, and the waste shall be filled, and the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that pass by. And they shall say, this land was desolate, and became like the garden of Eden, and the waste desolate, and the ruined cities are a confines, and are inhabited. Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I, the Lord, build the ruins. Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet, for this being inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them, I will increase them with men like a flock, as the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts. So shall the way cities be filled with flocks of men, and they shall know that I am the Lord. There. ends our reading and I'll go ahead and say that our topic for this weekend is conversion. And we're gonna be looking at conversion and I'm gonna pray with you all now and then we're gonna dive into this more fully. So let's just go to the Lord in prayer. O most gracious and high God. O Lord, you are the God of peace. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you are the God that created the heavens and the earth and all that in them is. You are always faithful, O Lord, to your covenant promises, and you, O God, are always true. There is no lie in you, O Lord. And so, O God, we come before you, the faithful, truthful God, and we say, O Lord, let you be true and all men to be liars. And, O God, as we come, and we are going to consider the topic of conversion, we pray, Lord, that we would grow to understand what it is that happens when a soul is taken from death to life, that, O Lord, that we would be able to understand what has happened in our own lives, in the lives of others, and that we would be more able to witness to the world around us, understanding man's state and understanding how you work to bring men, women, children to new life. And oh Lord, we pray also that if there be any in our midst who are unconverted, that they would come to realize their condition. And we particularly pray for our children who have not professed faith. Lord, we plead for their souls. We pray that you would remember your covenant, that you would draw them to yourself, that you would draw any here that do not know you to yourself and they would come to faith in Jesus Christ. Lord, will you reveal to them the Son of Man lifted up on the cross who calls sinners to forgiveness. We ask your blessing on this talk and upon our time here. And we ask this all in the name of Jesus Christ, who is our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Amen. Well, Before we dive into our, I guess, first talk, I wanna introduce this theme of conversion. And so, I'll give you a couple reasons why I felt that this was really a worthwhile place to begin. Conversion, of course, as I said in our prayer, is where God draws the sinner out of their depravity, out of their, their death in Adam and gives them new life in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I think conversion is very significant for all of us here because We're in one of two camps, to be totally blunt about it. Either we're converted or we're unconverted, right? And I'll first start with the converted. If you know the Lord Jesus Christ, why do you need to know more about this? You might say, well, the Lord has drawn me to himself. You might say, I've known the Lord Jesus since I was very young. You might say, he drew me to himself later in life, and I understand all this, so why should I dive back into it? Well, dear Christian, I think there's a couple of reasons. If we really think about it, the first reason I would give you is because the way that sinners are converted brings glory to God. And the Lord Jesus Christ, when he calls a sinner to himself, he gets glory out of that. That's why we're told that the angels in heaven rejoice at one repenting sinner. The second thing I would say to the converted person is that you want to understand what has gone on in your own Christian life. You want to understand that, I think, more fully. And the reason why I think that's so important You want to know what the Lord has done and is continuing to do so that you can be assured of your gracious state. And you might think to yourself, well, I have the promises, do I really need to look back on past experiences? And there's quite a bit of confusion maybe in your own mind. I've dealt with people. that have not really understood how the Lord worked in their life and it's led to a cloud of confusion over them throughout the whole course of their Christian lives. So don't think just looking back on how the Lord drew you to himself and how it happens that there won't be any profit to you. It actually, I think, hopefully will help you understand your own experience and could lead you to have a greater measure of knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and assurance. And the third thing I would give you is it helps you to witness. You should be very concerned about the fact that we live in an incredibly secular society, right? I think you all know that. Probably for me as an American, it's a bit more of a slap in the face, but it's very secular here in Tasmania. And sometimes I think that drives Christians to despair because they look around them and they see an ungodly agenda constantly advancing and it seems like there is no recourse. My friends, This is a Reformed church. We're Calvinist. We believe that God draws sinners to himself in effectual calling. We believe it's God that gives sinners new hearts. We believe all of these things. And so it's my hope that if you understand these things better, you might actually be more motivated to witness to your neighbors and tell them of the grace and the mercy that is found in the Lord Jesus Christ. And you might frankly have hope. Because there's really no reason to despair, even though we live in a very dark day. Because we don't convert people. The Spirit of God, poured out by the Lord Jesus Christ, makes the gospel effectual to sinners. It's God's work to convert people. So that should encourage us greatly. And it should stir us up to witness, because it's not my conduct, it's not your conduct. It's not the way that we phrase it that will convert people, it's really the work of God that converts the sinner. Now to the unconverted, let me give you a couple of things. The first thing is, is that you need to know the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. and this study of conversion will hopefully make you, hopefully, frankly, will confront you with the reality that you do need to be born again, that the Lord does draw sinners to himself, and you cannot be comfortable in your sins. Secondly, I'm particularly looking to young people here who have not made a profession of faith. This, for you, I think could be quite profitable if you will earnestly listen and earnestly apply it to yourselves. Because we hope at some point in time you will profess your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that you will go before your elders and you will tell them that you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as your own personal savior and you will ask to be admitted to the Lord's Supper. And now you have an opportunity, albeit I'm imperfect, and I'm not gonna say that this is going to be absolutely fantastic, but I hope, with God's help, that you will have an opportunity to understand how the Lord Jesus works in the life of sinners, how the Lord Jesus can work in your life, and that would press you to make a profession of faith, and secondly, that you would grow to understand generally just how God works in the life of sinners. Now before I go any further, I feel somewhat compelled to define conversion, right? So I think that people, when they think about conversion, they think of kind of the stereotypical American Baptist experience that I would have grown up around, where you know the day and you know the hour, and you can give a long story about how exactly it happened. Now, That might be the case, but that's not actually what we're gonna be looking at. What we're speaking of conversion, this is our, I guess our beginning definition. Conversion is defined as the work of the Holy Ghost whereby a sinner is turned to God in Christ and repents and exercises faith in the Lord Jesus the Christ. Now, I've given you one definition and I have to further subdivide. So please forgive me, I'm not trying to excessively qualify anything, I just wanna be very clear at the outset. We can further divide that definition into regeneration. And regeneration is where the spirit of God comes upon a sinner and gives them a new heart. It's what we read about in Ezekiel 36, 26, where the Lord says, I will give them a new heart. Right? So that's regeneration. That's, as it were, the moment the Spirit of God comes and renews the will. There's a second, I suppose we could say category of, a second subdivision of conversion, and that comes, and we could also say regeneration is the effectual call. We'll get more into that tomorrow, but it comes with the actual exercise of faith. Right, so what happens when the Spirit gives you a new heart is the Lord, Psalm 110 verse three, the Lord makes his people willing in the day of his power. Faith, of course, is a gift of God. That new heart, God enables you to exercise faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the exercise of faith is what brings about all of the benefits of union with the Lord Jesus, right? We are justified by faith alone. We see adoption flowing out of that. We see sanctification flowing out of that as a work of the Spirit of God, right? So when we think about us believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, we've been brought into union with Christ, and now we're looking to Him as our Savior, and all of these wonderful benefits flow out So let me just give you those categories again. There's regeneration, there's renewing of the heart, there's the exercise of faith, and one other thing about this exercise of faith is it's a daily exercise. Right? And we're gonna look on Lord's Day morning at the Philippian jailer, but I just wanna go ahead and put this in your mind. Yes, you do exercise faith in the Lord Jesus. You're justified by faith. It's a legal act. It's a one-time thing. You cannot lose that. Don't get me wrong, but the Christian life requires daily further exertions of faith and repentance of sin. That's a constant. Day in and day out, there's a walking with the Lord Jesus. That's why you read some of the old writers, some of the Puritans, particularly some of the Dutch Second Reformation writers, like Mohamed Sabrako, they'll talk about daily conversion. They're speaking of that daily looking outside of yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ and daily turning from sin to life in God. Now, We're going to have five lectures, and I'll go ahead and give you the outline of those, and we'll dive into our first one. So our first lecture is the necessity of conversion, the necessity of conversion. Our second lecture is gonna be on the effectual call. Our third lecture is on the Philippian jailer. It's really gonna deal with what it means to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and to have faith in Christ as the savior, the prophet, priest, and king. Our fourth lecture is going to be on false conversion. False conversion, right? So there is, sad to say, a counterfeit work that can happen. There's those that profess faith that are not Christians. That will be our fourth lecture. And then our fifth lecture will be on the marks of grace, the marks of grace. And I'll add one note. For me, lecture and sermon are not going to differ a great deal, so I'm gonna be preaching at you all the same. Now beginning with John chapter three, and our verse this morning, our text is John 3.3. And Jesus answered and said unto him, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom. And we're gonna deal with this text in three points. An interesting encounter will be our first point. Our second point will be how the scriptures speak of the unconverted, how the scriptures speak of the unconverted. And then thirdly, we're gonna kind of branch out and look at Jesus and Nicodemus's interaction as a basis for how we understand conversion and the covenant of grace. So our third point is conversion and the covenant of grace. So let's begin first with an interesting encounter. We have a man who's a Pharisee named Nicodemus, and he comes to reward Jesus by night. And Nicodemus is not just a Pharisee, he's described in John 3, verse one, as a ruler of the Jews. We later see Nicodemus in John 7, verses 50 to 51, at a council meeting of the Sanhedrin. So I want you to understand, maybe children, it's best you can think of Nicodemus like this. Nicodemus was sort of a seminary professor. He was a preacher. He had sort of a hand in everything, right? So Nicodemus was a well-known theologian, and he was one of the theological minds that was very involved in making decisions around, in Judaism, I should say, at that time, particularly around the temple as part of And we're not told the circumstances, but Nicodemus, somehow or another, hears of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he comes to Jesus by night. I think that suggests two things. I think one, he's making the effort to come even if it's under darkness. But secondly, as many have thought, it might suggest that Nicodemus doesn't exactly want to be seen approaching the Savior. So it's interesting, right? On one hand, he's making the effort to get there, but on the other hand, he's not doing it entirely openly. Now he comes to the Lord Jesus, And he makes a surprising confession to him, and that's in verse two. He says, basically, we know that thou art a teacher from God. And that, basically, the Lord Jesus can do miracles. Jesus doesn't even let him get much further. And Jesus tells him that famous line, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. So here we have this expert theologian, this expert in all of the Jewish law and theology. And by the way, Nicodemus would have been so learned that he could probably recite the book of Psalms, for example, from ministry. He would have been able to recite vast amounts of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. So I want you to grasp, this is by no means an ignorant man. And he comes to Christ, And Jesus doesn't even really seemingly let him finish. Jesus comes and he confronts him with something. And the confrontation that Jesus gives them is he must be born again. He's coming to this teacher in Israel, this great rabbi, and he's saying to him that fundamentally there's something spiritually wrong with you. But can you imagine that? Now on one hand, of course we think the Lord Jesus, he's fully God and fully man, he would have known that there was something spiritually wrong with Nicodemus. And here's the great theologian of the people of Israel, he doesn't know, he thinks that Jesus is from God, he doesn't really know who Jesus is, and Jesus, without skipping a beat, just tells him, something's not right with you, something has got to change, you must, Nicodemus, of course, gives a very interesting response. Nicodemus basically asks, I'm old. How can I be born again? How can I enter a second time into my mother's womb? And different commentators have conjectured what exactly Nicodemus might mean by this. But I will put to you that the key thing you need to know about what Nicodemus not understanding what the Lord Jesus Christ is saying to him. To put it in colloquial terms, he's not picking up on what the Lord Jesus is laying down. Now, I think that any one of us in this room can actually be in that very position. that we might know much about the scriptures, and you've grown up, most of you, in Christian homes, but there's a danger here, right? There's this sort of, have you ever heard of this in the U.S.? I think they call it the danger of familiarity, or the contempt of familiarity, but basically, you become so familiar with something that you start basically to neglect it. It's very common for people that work with dangerous equipment, power tools, chainsaws, firearms, and so on. They become so familiar with them that they stop basically performing the right safety procedures. They just become careless. And this can happen with us. It can happen with you. You were reared in the scriptures. You were brought up under the administration of God's covenant, and you might be well aware of who God is and what the Lord Jesus Christ has done. There might be something It might be something that you might have become negligent of in the case of backsliding, or in the case of Nicodemus, you lack all together. Now, Jesus tells Nicodemus that he needs to be born, in verse five, of water and of the Spirit. He cannot enter into the kingdom of God. So Jesus, what is he driving at with that? Well, he's telling Nicodemus, Fundamentally, that the Spirit of God needs to work, you need to be cleansed, and the Spirit of God needs to give you a new heart. But Jesus closes in verse seven, saying, you do not marvel that I've said this, ye must be born again. I think sometimes it's very easy for us to marvel at the most simple things, right? But here, Nicodemus is acute, I shouldn't say acutely, sorry. He's very theologically aware. He has a very accurate understanding of all of the Jewish religion, and yet he encounters the Messiah. He's not seemingly sure that he's the Messiah and further, Jesus tells him, you need a change of spiritual state. You need a change of spiritual state. But the question I think that we have to put to ourselves is, is this something that's common? Do all people need this change of spiritual state? So let's branch out. We've seen Jesus and Nicodemus, right? We've seen their interaction. Let's branch out and look at the rest of the scriptures. And what do the scriptures say about this topic? We have to first begin, so we're moving to our second point, but let's first begin with understanding the state of man, and this is vitally important. Man was created in the Garden of Eden under a covenant of works, right? So God voluntarily condescends to Adam and enters in with Adam, who is the federal head of children. You know, Australia is a nation that has a federal government. I trust you heard that. Federal government mean? It means your government represents you, right? You elect members of parliament that represent you. So Australia's a federal government. Adam is the federal representative of the whole human race. And what that means is he represents us, every single one of us, in this covenant of works with God. And what did the covenant of works entail? I trust you all know this, but the covenant of works basically entailed Adam's perfect obedience in exchange for eternal life. And on the other hand, if he broke the covenant of works, he was liable to death. Well, Adam and Eve obviously fell into sin, and when Adam and Eve fell, so did the whole of the human race. And now, man was created in innocency, right? Man had a perfectly clean heart. He was created so that he could serve the Lord. But when Adam fell, that all changed. Man went from being good to being a sinner. And really, I don't think sometimes we think about the profundity of ourselves as sinners. And particularly, I don't think, I think we think a lot about what we do in terms of sin, and we should. We need to know how we sin, and we need to know how to repent of our sin. But on the other hand, my friends, have you ever thought about how sin has killed off all spiritual life? In fact, there was really a threefold death that occurred in the covenant of works. There is, physical death, that is dying of illness, right? There was no death in the world before the fall. Death comes in, things like illness, cancer, all of that comes into the world. Further, there's eternal death, right? So that's hell, that's what's threatened upon the breaking of the law. But Adam and Eve, when they ate of the apple, if it was an apple, I should say the fruit, forgive me. When they ate of the forbidden fruit, they immediately died. But they died spiritually, right away. immediately spiritual death or their spiritual life came upon their souls. And have you really thought about the extent to which sin has marred you? The extent of sin that you can bring forth nothing good to God, that you cannot even be in a relationship with the God that created you because you are a sinner. And the scriptures, they speak quite strongly about this. In Romans 8, verse 7, we read about man's mind. being an enmity with God. Of course, David in Psalm 51, he says that he was conceived in iniquity and sin, right? So man is brought forth in sin, his mind is in enmity with God, but you do nothing. That's why we read, for example, in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14, the natural man, that is the one who is in Adam, who is not in Christ, but in Adam, he can receive nothing of the Spirit of God. That's why we also read, for example, in Ephesians 2, the well-known first two verses of the chapter, and you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sin. If you this morning are still in your sins, if you have not closed and come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, I wanna make it clear to you that the Bible says that you are spiritually dead. We could even call you perhaps a dead man walking. There's no good in you, there's no spiritual life that's being brought forth. Paul makes a very similar statement in Colossians. And there, the apostle says that you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, have to quicken together with him, having forgiven your trespasses, right? So again, we have that idea of death, that there's spiritual death. That's really what Jesus was saying. when Nicodemus came to him. That idea that ye must be born again, it's not some abstract idea really, it's facing a spiritual reality. That Nicodemus is dead in his sins, that he's a child of Adam, that all that he can bring forth before God, despite of all his learning, is but the broken rubble of a fallen down covenant of words. And it's not pleasing to God. Despite all that he knows, he can do nothing to please the Lord. And Jesus tells him, basically the same way that you were born into this world, you need to have a change spiritually. A change that brings you from death to life. A change that is so vast, that is so great, it can only be spoken of, if I may say it this way, it can only be spoken of as a new birth. When we think about conversion, we think about the need to be born again. We can't distance ourselves from it. We have to rather remember what the scriptures say. We have to realize that we, outside of Christ, are dead in our trespasses and sins. And when someone is converted, it's an absolutely monumental work. For a moment about the resurrection. I think that we give a lot of thought to the resurrection that we should, and the mighty work of God, where the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, showed victory over sin by rising physically from the grave, from passing from the state of death to life. But that's what happens in conversion. It happens spiritually, though. The Lord Jesus takes the soul of a man who is dead in his trespasses and sins and raises him, as it were, from the dead and gives him new life. Now, we also have to remember that this is God's work. Man cannot do this for himself. You see, and this I think is a ground of hope if you're outside the Lord Jesus Christ, is that even though you can bring forth nothing good, you cannot save yourself. It is God that is merciful. It is God that saves the sinner. And so we read, for example, in Titus chapter three, Verses three through five, there, Paul writing to Titus, of course, about this work of the Holy Spirit, and there we read that, for we ourselves were also sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving diverse lusts and pleasures, living in the malice and envy and hateful, hating one another. But after that, the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, 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 Ghost. Dear friends, presents to us a picture of ourselves that's not very pretty. But oh, does it present a beautiful picture of the work of the Spirit of God. It's new life. You can think about Isaiah 35, this beautiful chapter that sort of picks up on this imagery, where you have, of course, there, the barren and the desolate place, and what do we find? We find the desert is brought to bring forth new life. That's what happens in the soul, barren and desolate, and now it brings forth new life. My friend, it might be well to understand this all in the abstract, but do you know it for yourself? You might say, what do you mean do I know it for myself? I know on one hand I'm a sinner, and I know on the other hand that the Lord Jesus Christ He's a savior. And I suppose that, at a base level, really wouldn't put you necessarily all that far off from Nicodemus. Nicodemus had a great deal of knowledge of theology, so we could think about, you know that you're a sinner, you know much. You know more than perhaps the world around you that denies it. You know that Jesus is a savior too, but we read James, he tells us that the demons in hell know that and they tremble, they're afraid of the Lord Jesus Christ. So what's the difference? You need that new birth, you need the Lord Jesus Christ to come by his spirit and give you a new heart and apply alone is the giver of, that needs to be implied to you personally. And so we think about why people need to be converted, it's because of the picture, the scriptures paint of man. Man is dead in his trespasses and sins and there's no life in him spiritually and we need new life brought forth in us. Let me just jump Now into my third point here, which is dealing with conversion and the covenant of grace. And I think this is probably one of the areas where the rubber meets the road. And there's lots of questions, right, about, well, the church is God's covenant people. We're in the covenant of grace, so do we need to be converted in the same way that that person on the street out there might need to be converted? And there's this question of, well, are children are baptized, we raise and you should raise your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. But how do we see our children? What are we to make of this? Do we instruct our children that they are born again already? Do we treat our children as if there's no grace in them? How do we deal with this? It's a very sensitive issue. It's a very sensitive issue in reformed churches, right? I think the best place probably to begin with this is in Romans chapter three, where the Apostle Paul, of course, gives his famous question, what advantage hath the Jew? And the answer he gives, I think, is quite helpful for us. He says that there's much advantage the Jew has in every way, chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. So we think about God and his relationship with his covenant people, the Old Testament Jews, Paul is telling to us that they have a great advantage in that they have the scriptures, and so it is, dear church, with you. You have the scriptures. This is a great advantage to the world. I don't know if anyone here, I seem to do this about weekly, probably because it's my job, but I try to talk to people of the world. And if you actually try to talk to somebody who identifies as an atheist, there's lots of interesting questions that they will put to you. And they're very hard questions. They'll ask you things like, can you prove the existence of God? You say the Bible is authoritative. Prove it to me. How do you know the Bible is the word of God? For most of you, though, You were born and raised in Christian homes and you take it for granted that there is a God. You've been raised hearing of God's wonderful works in church services and in family worship. You've heard of all that the Lord has done. But you've never had a day where you've doubted that God's word is the inspired and infallible word of God breathing. And what are we to say to this? We're to say there's much advantage in this, there's much blessing in this, and we do not mean to discount it. And you might also say, well, if there's advantage in this, and we're under God's covenant, How are we to see ourselves? How are we to see the church? If you're telling me on one hand there's advantage, must we be converted? Come on. The answer I would give to you, my friend, is that we all must be converted in order to see the kingdom of God. But tomorrow we're gonna get more into how that happens, particularly, that in the covenant of grace, there's a blessed advantage. There's benefits for the people of God. But, I think we have to see the covenant in a particular way. We have to see the covenant of grace as our confession of faith does, in Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter seven, as a voluntary condescension by God. where God has chosen. It was interesting that covenant of grace actually follows after providence in the order of the Westminster Divines gave for the confession. And they actually, you could argue, see, and I think this is correct, they see the doctrine of the covenant as an outworking of God's providence. You might say, okay, well, that's very fancy to talk about the order of confession. What do you mean by that? Well, here's what I mean. God's covenant is the means that God has chosen to use to draw sinners to himself. That we need to see the covenant of grace as the means by which God is most ordinarily used to draw sinners to himself. That's why The church is God's covenant people, that's why we read in the Westminster Confession of Faith, there's no ordinary possibility of salvation outside the visible church, because that is where the covenant of grace is, that's where Christ, as our confession says, freely offereth himself to sinners. And so the covenant, I would challenge you to think of the covenant like this. The covenant of grace is the means by which God uses to have a relationship with his people. And when we think about what is kind of the substance, as it were, or the end of the covenant of grace, we should think about the Lord Jesus Christ, the mediator of the covenant of grace. So we don't, We put it this way, we don't think about covenant so much as a thing, so much as something that is sort of there that we love and enjoy, but rather we see the covenant of grace as God's instrument given to us as a kind condescension of God, whereby we are able to behold the beauty and the riches of the Lord Jesus Christ and what he calls sinners to himself. And so I say all of that to say that the very nature of the covenant of grace requires us to take conversion seriously. The very nature of how God has chosen to relate to his people requires us to preach, we must be born again, and to ask ourselves the question, are we born again? We must say, all right, well, Can you give me examples of this being the case? And I'll try to do that first from the Old Testament. And I'll give you a couple big picture examples, and then I'll try to give you one specific. I think we're running pretty close on time, and I wanna be mindful of that. So first, let's begin with big picture examples. God calls his people out of the land of Egypt. Immediately, God's people begin sinning in the wilderness. In fact, their unbelief is so strong that when the spies return from looking at the land of Canaan, they are not spiritually fit to enter into the land. God says, you must. He says, this generation will pass away. You're gonna wander in the wilderness. If you think about that, this is a whole invisible church thing. drawn on the land of Egypt, and they're getting ready to come into the promised land. But of course you know that Canaan is a type of heaven, right? It's a picture for us that the Christian is drawn out of the bondage of sin and walks through the desert, the barren places, the wilderness of this world, and then we come at death and we enter into our heavenly rest, the heavenly Canaan. But notice that. The visible church is drawn out of Egypt, and they come to the border of Canaan, and by their unbelief, a whole lot of the visible church doesn't make it into the land. In fact, a whole generation has to pass away because of their unbelief. Now, that's not to say that everyone in that generation was unbelieving. Why? Because Aaron and Moses, who were believers, would not go into the land. But the point is this, that the church, the Old Testament church, was a mixed, multitude. And you see that throughout the Old Testament scripture. Just think for a moment about the ministry of the prophets. Why were the prophets called to bring forth God's message to Old Testament Israel? Because fundamentally they were that were not all believing. They were all under the administration, if we may say it this way, of the covenant of grace. Ideally, we know in Israel it didn't happen properly, but ideally most of the men would be circumcised. They were set aside by God as his people. And yet many of them lived ungodly lives and were called to repent by the prophets. I'm thinking of one very specific example from Deuteronomy chapter 10, verse 16, where there we read that famous line that Israel needs to be circumcised in heart. Right, so there's this circumcision of the flesh, there's the cutting off of the foreskin, and obviously that has a very deep meaning. But on a base level, I want you to understand that that's a sign of God's covenant. It's a sign in the flesh of them being set aside to God. And what God is saying there in Deuteronomy 10, 16 is that sign in the flesh is not merely enough because the sign is something outward and there's an inward reality that you need to have. And the same is true of your baptism, my friend. The same is true of your baptism. Your baptism as a sacrament is an outward sign and seal. It's something that the Lord Jesus Christ has instituted in his church It's something that is given to strengthen the faith of God's people. It's something that when you receive it, you're counted as separate from the world, and you're federally holy again, right? So your parents, who are members of the visible church, they are the ones that are deemed to be holy, and you are counted with them as federally holy. You're part of the church, but your baptism really points to that greater reality that you need the changed heart. that baptism signifies the washing of regeneration, the work of the Holy Ghost in your life, that that's the outward, that's the visible sign that God gives to us to stir us up, to understand the work of the Spirit. But really, we need that reality internally. We need not only baptism outwardly, but we need baptism by the Spirit in the heart, as it were, the same way that the Israelites need to be circumcised not merely in the flesh, but in the heart. And you might say, all right, fair enough, we can read the whole scope of God's old covenant history, and we see that they were a mixed multitude. They're led, of course, into captivity, lest come back. There's example after example of Israel being a mixed multitude. You might say, but what? I think we have to understand, and I think our confession is very, very helpful. I should really say the catechism here is very, very helpful when it deals with the covenant of grace, the larger catechism, because when you look in the larger catechism, I think this would be sort of our understanding of Westminster theology, you find that There's one covenant of grace, there's two administrations of that covenant of grace, right? And so I want you to understand that Israel in the Old Testament is a mixed multitude and the same is true for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ today. And I'm thinking particularly of the larger catechism where it asks this question, has the covenant of grace, question answer 33, was the covenant of grace always administered in one and the same manner? And there we read the covenant of grace was not always administered after the same manner, but the administration of it under the new and the old testament those of the new. But the catechism goes on and it says that the covenant of grace, this is question answer 34, was administered under the Old Testament by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the Passover, and other types of ordinances which did all four signify the Christ then to come, and were for that time sufficient to build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah by whom they then had the full remission of sin and eternal salvation. Then question answer 35, how is the covenant of grace administered under the New Testament? Under the New Testament, when Christ the substance was exhibited, the same covenant of grace was and still is administered in the preaching of the word, the administration of the sacraments of baptism in the Lord's Supper, in which grace and salvation are held forth in more fullness, evidence, and efficacy, and say, you just read a lot of stuff there, I don't have it in front of me, can you summarize it? And I'll try. There's an old covenant and there's a new covenant. But if you can think about it like this, behind them is this overarching plan of God's salvation. In the old covenant, everything looked forward to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the picture, if we may sit this way, the picture the old covenant saints had was not as full as we have today. But, and this is key, sinners were still saved by grace through faith alone. And the nature of God's covenant people while it consisted or it was contained in one nation, that is Israel, they were still a mixed multitude. Jump ahead to the new covenant, right, and what do you see there? You see that the administration outwardly has changed, but the way of salvation is still the same, except instead of looking forward, we look back. And God's covenant people are still a mixed multitude, as our larger catechism says, when dealing with the visible and invisible church. And I'll just read to you that very quickly. Question answer 62, what is the visible church? The visible church is a society made up of all such as in all ages and places of the world that do profess the true religion and their children. Then you go to question answer 64. What is the invisible church? The invisible church is the whole number of the elect that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one under Christ the head. So what that means is there's a visible church of all that profess the Christian religion. But then out of that number, that multitude that is the visible church, the Lord Jesus Christ gathers to himself the elect. So again, we have this picture of the covenant people of God in our own day being a mixed multitude. The covenant of grace is administered differently in the old covenant and the new covenant, but that same reality is there. The same reality is that the church is a mixed multitude and there is a need, my friend, for every single one of us to be born again. And Nicodemus is the prime example, I would argue, of that mixed multitude. Here is a man that comes to the Lord Jesus. He's theologically informed, he's an expert, if we may say it that way, in all manner of theology, and Jesus tells him that he has something he lacks, and that is his spiritual state is not right. We see it also elsewhere in the New Testament scriptures, just by way of example. If you look at Matthew 13, where you're dealing with The parable of the sower, right? And the parable of the sower, Matthew 13, it opens with the kingdom of God is like unto, it talks about a sower going out to sow. Kingdom of God, I would argue, most Reformed commentators agree with me, kingdom of God is synonymous with the visible church. Sorry, he says kingdom of heaven. It's synonymous with the visible church. The kingdom of heaven is the visible church. And Jesus basically says that there's four types of soil, and only one type of soil will receive this seed, of the word well. Now, I'm not saying that three-fourths of any given church or three-fourths of you in this room are unconverted. My point is, though, is that the Lord Jesus is speaking very clearly that this is the visible church, and as the word goes forth, it's gonna convert some people, and some it will have no effect on. Actually, it will have some effect, and we'll get into that later again, but my point is it doesn't have a saving effect. So, I hope you see that just because we are under the administration of the covenant of grace, because God is our covenant God, that doesn't necessarily mean that all in the church are saved. And nor does it mean that we should presume to such an extent that we neglect the preaching of the gospel and the calling of all men and women and children to faith and repentance in the Lord Jesus Christ. If we think about a kind of apostolic ministry, That is the message that is preached. I mean, the Apostle Paul in Acts 20, exhorting the Ephesian elders, he says that he's preached what? Faith and repentance in the Lord Jesus Christ. You can read about John the Baptist, how he calls men and women to repentance. The preaching of the Lord Jesus is summarized in the gospels as preaching repentance. And so, I want you to think about that, that there's to be this general call of repentance and to faith in Christ to all, and that's even including God's covenant people. And so let's close with a few words of application, and let me first draw it to a conclusion. So I hope you see from the example of Nicodemus and the way that the scriptures speak about all of humanity, even to visible church. And you understand, in our understanding of the covenant of grace and the nature of God's people as a mixed multitude, that there is a need every single one of us would be born again. That conversion is not something for those outside of the church, that conversion is not for those that go wayward and are brought back and need some great experience of God's grace, but conversion is for each and every one of us. If we want to inherit the kingdom of heaven, as we read in Matthew 18, verse three, except ye be converted, ye shall likewise perish. Now, let me draw a few points of application. My first point is that it is vital, my friend, for you to be converted. There is nothing of such great importance in this world as you knowing that you are converted and that you have closed with the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you have not, I plead with you that you would consider the gospel offer of Christ. and children are commanded to repent and believe that gospel, and I plead with you that you would think about the wrath that is to come. Because what advantage hath the Jew? Much advantage in every way. But as the old saying goes, to whom much is given, much is required, and so it is with you. that you've been given much of the light of God's word and now much is required of you, so what should you do? You should respond in faith and repentance to the Lord Jesus Christ. Second point of application, particularly thinking back to man being dead in his trespasses and sins, is that we should be led to mourn the fall of man and to mourn our own sinfulness, particularly our unbelief our lack of spiritual fruit, and how desperately bad it is with us, apart from the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. There should be mourning for these things. Third point of application, is if you're a Christian, you should thank God for his converting work, because it is really bringing the dead to life. It is an amazing and astounding work of God. We think much, perhaps you think about the parting of the Red Sea, or you think about the Lord Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, or you think about the Lord Jesus' resurrection, but in your own life, and hopefully in the lives of your friends and family, there's a powerful and almighty work of God that is raising, it's not even raising the dead soul to life, it's giving the dead soul new. And that's a mighty work of God, of God's people, and ought to be very, very thankful for it. Now, my last point of application would be this. This is we read in Titus 3, or Titus 3 verse 3, that there's that litany of sins that are given. And Titus says, such as basically you were and then God, by the work of his Holy Spirit, brought you from death to life. He renewed your heart. And so it is, my friends, there should be great confidence in witnessing of the gospel, that the gospel, that drawing sinners is Christ's work, and we should have the utmost confidence in doing it, that this is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, that is, that the Spirit has been given to bring sinners from death to life, and it's something we need to be earnestly desiring after and praying for. and we should trust that the Lord will accomplish His ends. And again, I'll just close with the words of Matthew 18, verse three, that except ye be converted, ye shall likewise perish. It's necessary that every one of us would be converted and brought to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, let's pray. that created the heavens and the earth, we do, O Lord, come. Before you, after this talk, hopefully Lord humbled at knowing the vitality of knowing something more of the need for us all to be born again and that except we are converted, O Lord, we shall likewise perish. We pray, O God, that we would consider ourselves, that we would consider whether we be in a state of grace or, O Lord, whether we be dead and unbelief. We further, O God, pray that also we would be stirred up to grant thankfulness and praise to your holy name for the mighty work that you do in drawing sinners to yourself. And we pray this all in the name of Jesus Christ, the righteous. wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Amen. And I think that is...