Welcome to Kevin's community. This is, I believe, not the longest tradition yet, but we hope it goes for many years. Third annual Bible conference, and we are looking forward to having Dr. Master with us. We will say a little bit more about that in a moment. Last year, if you remember, we had one on the topic of marriage. This year on regeneration. Last year, we had Emily Van Dykstra on with us. speaker that is planning to come, Craig Troxell, who teaches at Westminster, California, and we've read his book, We'll Call Your Heart. So just mark your calendars, and I hope you just keep this happening as part of our tradition here at Cumberland. A little bit of housekeeping, we're having talks at 9, 10, and 11. We've got a half hour followed by a Q&A. And then refreshments, which are one floor down. All kinds of refreshments. So go through those stairs, one floor down. You can grab a coffee and some other things. And we will try to start right again on the hour. So either remember, or you may be gently reminded to gather again. But that is our basic pattern. There is child care for those who signed up. But if you did sign up, it's up and running. We also have lunch plans. We try to make this conference fairly light in regards to the extra busyness on the weekend, which is Saturday morning with recessions. And then we do lunch off-site. And we have called ahead to three restaurants nearby. And there's some sign-up sheets right there on the tables. And if you sign up immediately after the first session, then we will be able to call ahead and make sure that they come in. A few things about books. We have a book table back there. And the first thing is there is a copy of Dr. Masters' book, You Must Be Born Again, which is the book that, in a sense, well, it's the theme of the conference. And those are on the table, I believe, under the window. Now, we have a second book for sale, Redemption Unpublished and Applied by John Murray, which is also a book that would be consonant with the theme of the conference. And those are a suggested donation of $13. There's a box at the back of the church, a little red wooden box. You can put a check in there with a note on it or an envelope. And you can pick up one of those copies. We would recommend both of these for reading. I'd recommend this book. Jump to this book. For a couple of reasons, you can use this book in a number of different ways. Yourself as a Christian to grow the doctrine of regeneration, which hopefully we'll all do together in the conference. But there are applications throughout also to the unbeliever. And there's a sense in which this book would also be good, and I think that's probably going to be what you wrote, to give to somebody who's asking, what does it mean to be a Christian? And how could I become a Christian? And so grab one of these. You might even want to read this book if you have your own copy and then think about it as a book you could give to somebody who doesn't know the Lord. So I recommend that book highly. I'm very thankful for it. This brings me to a brief introduction. Dr. John McMaster serves as the president of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, which some of you may have heard of. just down the road here on King Street. Jonathan and I, I think we met at a Banner Church Conference, probably somewhere in the last 10 or 15 years. I don't even know exactly when. Since that time, I have been privileged to know Dr. Master as a friend. He also served as a minister of the gospel in the Presbyterian Church of America. And before he came to Greenville, he was at Caron University, He has served at Greenville for four years now. And one of the things we were just talking about even just a moment ago, one of the things I'm deeply grateful for, Jonathan came to Greenville. I gave him a call to tell him how thankful I was that he was coming. And now we can even already look back and see how thankful we are for the Lord's kindness to the ministry of Greenville Seminary. There's a lot of students here, and there's some faculty and some staff that attend here. But tomorrow, during Sunday school, we'll have an intro to Renewable Seminary, because a lot of you don't know that much about the school and its mission. So I look forward to that in tomorrow's Sunday school. Why don't we stand and sing together 100A, brief hymn of praise, and then we'll pray. Lord of earth, and make a joyful noise. With gladness serve the Lord your God before Him, lift your voice. Now though the Lord is gone, He made us, we are His. His people and His sheep who sing Thee in His pasture praise. Enter his gates with thanks, and fill his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name, to God your voices raise. Because the Lord is good, his steadfast love endures. From age to age, forevermore, this faithfulness is sure. Let's pray together. Lord our God, we thank you for a new day. We thank you for the reason for our gathering that we might be reminded of your mighty saving work, work which only you can do in the heart of the dead and the unbelieving to bring light and life to the gospel Lord, we're thankful that we have Dr. Master here with us. Lord, we pray for his work and labor at Greenville Seminary, pray for that school that their ministers of the gospel might be raised up to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ to the ends of the earth. And that you would bless our brother in that labor. We pray also that you would bless him here this morning as he comes as a minister of the gospel to speak to us of things of eternity. and of Christ, and of new life in him, and that you would give him grace to speak and give us grace to hear. And we pray for these mercies, asking for forgiveness and every help in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So good to be with you this morning and this weekend. It's just always a joy to be here. I want to begin by reading a text of Scripture that will kind of hover over everything that we talk about these next few days. It's a familiar text, but I think it's worth repeating. I'll refer to it over and over again. This is not an exposition of this text. or really of any one text, but I think it's appropriate for us to begin by reading this. This is from John 3, beginning in v. 1, going through v. 15. So, please join with me as I read God's Word. John 3, 1-15. 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. Jesus answered him, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear it sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes, so it is with everyone who is born of the spirit. Nicodemus said to him, how can these things be? Jesus answered him, are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you of earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life. Well, as I said, this is not, strictly speaking, an exposition of this text, but this text needs to loom large in our thinking for the entirety of the weekend, because in this text, Jesus declares something that is easy to at least read on the page, if not to understand. In verse three, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God, and then you must be born again. And I want to approach this with two premises, two main points. And I would say that if there is nothing else that you take away, particularly from this introductory session, these two main points are vital for you to understand. And I think when I say them, they will, at first glance, be sort of obvious to you. You'll wonder why these are profound points at all. But I want us to really reflect on these two points and even examine ourselves to see if our understanding, your understanding of the Christian life is really in practice in line with these two basic premises. Premise one is this. Christianity, from beginning to end, is a supernatural religion. It's a supernatural religion. Now again, you are no doubt saying, well of course it is supernatural. What is supernaturalism? It refers to something that deals with an order of existence beyond our own, beyond what we see, beyond the natural. It is something having to do with God. But it's interesting to think about this and to probe yourself, probe your own assumptions here. I'll note that many people have made this point, but Machen makes this point very succinctly. He says, actually, supernaturalism, and I'm saying Christianity is a supernatural religion from beginning to end. He says this, supernaturalism is the very thing that all modern reconstructions of Christianity are most anxious to avoid. So when he examines, in that time, in the 1920s, the liberalism that had infected the mainline Presbyterian church, but I think we can extend it beyond the mainline in the 1920s, And I'll draw out some implications there, but what he says, and I think he's right, is that the point of contention, the real issue, the thing that they want to avoid most is supernaturalism. And what I'm saying is, supernaturalism is inescapable. Christianity is from beginning to end. a supernatural religion. Now, think about this for a moment. Think about the implications of this. This means that if you meet someone who seems like they are a good person, if they attend a church, they have well-behaved kids, they seem to look at society in a similar way to the way you do, That could be merely what Machen calls a reconstruction of Christianity that has no part of the supernatural. And I would say this to you, if you have attended, and I don't know all of you, I know many of you in here, but if you have ever attended, either on vacation or perhaps in your upbringing, if you have ever spent time in a mainline church You will see this displayed week after week. What you will see in the best case scenario are people who are good neighbors. You will hear things that are probably good instructions. I know it's not always the case. Oftentimes there's really crazy stuff. But often you'll just hear good things and sound teaching. And this can actually happen if you've grown up in a in a broadly evangelical context. You hear good things, you hear good advice about your family, and how to get along with your spouse, and how to handle your money, and how to navigate life in this world. All good things, but devoid of this reality. Because, I think Machen's right, supernaturalism is the very thing that reconstructions of Christianity seek to avoid. Now, I want to address an objection here, because you may be saying, well, that's probably true, but my Christianity is firmly supernatural. I believe that Jesus is the God-man. I believe that Scripture is breathed out by God. That's supernatural. I believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the future bodily resurrection. That is supernatural. And that's right. That's good. And as you know, of course, over the years, many of the attacks against the Christian faith were on just those points. It's good. You say, I am a supernaturalist with respect to all those things. But what I'm actually saying in this first premise is that Christianity and the supernaturalism of Christianity involves more than this. It involves more than just saying Jesus is the God-man. The Bible is breathed out by God. There is a resurrection of the dead. When your supernaturalism ends with divine nature of Jesus, check. View on the scriptures, check. Convictions about bodily resurrection, check. These are all necessary, but what this passage, and I would say the whole Bible teaches us, is there's actually even more to it. And this will take me to my second premise, to fill out the first premise, which is this, that there is a radical, supernatural transformation promised in the Bible in which God the Holy Spirit, by His Word, takes a spiritually dead and corrupt heart, brings it to life, and ultimately glorifies it in heaven. Now, that's a long definition. I understand that. But the point is this, that we need to affirm the supernatural realities of Christianity with respect to the doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of the Word of God. We could go on and on. But there is a radical supernatural transformation. We're talking now about individual people. We're talking about conversion here. that is promised in the Bible, in which God the Holy Spirit, by his word, takes a spiritually dead and corrupt heart, brings it to life, and ultimately glorifies it in heaven. And that, that reality, that supernatural reality that is integral in the Christian faith is so significant that Jesus, when he confronts Nicodemus, this teacher of the law, who knew his Bible pretty well, although seemed to miss this, He can say, this is so important that unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Now, why is this significant? Well, it's significant because the verse is like that. Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Archibald Alexander put it this way. In comparison with salvation, all other subjects are trivial. In other words, for you, if you sort of have a list of things that are important in your life, a list of things that are the big questions, the big issues in your life, Alexander is saying, and I think Jesus is saying in John chapter three, in comparison with salvation, put everything else aside. That is the big question. What the Bible points to is a radical supernatural transformation in which God the Holy Spirit takes a corrupt heart and brings it to new life. Jesus says that the gate is narrow and hard that leads to life and those who find it are few. And he says there's a narrow door and many seek to enter it and will not be able This is what he's saying. So I want to really begin here by reminding you of something that is so basic that it shouldn't have to be said, but I think it does have to be said. And I think it has to be said, I want to say very clearly, even in our current denominational and sort of church setting, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Why is it so necessary in our world to keep saying that? Well, you'd be surprised. There are many who would even put the label, not just sort of an evangelical label, but a reformed label on their own teaching and would say, I have a quote here that this is something that does not exist. The quote is this, my thesis is that there is no such thing as regeneration, says one. academic scholar. The Bible says nothing, he goes on to say, about a permanent change in the hearts of those who are elected to go to heaven. Now that's an academic scholar, there are others like him, but I think there's, so there's that danger, that's why we need to repeat it, but there are other dangers as well. There is a broad redefinition that has taken place when it comes to this question of the new birth. So some who outright deny it, But there are many, and I think this is pervasive, there are many who don't outright deny it, but they have redefined it. So, for an example of this, let me give you the definition given by the Barna Group. You may be familiar with this. It's a polling organization. They do a lot of religious surveys to try to determine how different people think about the world, how they look at social issues, and one of the categories that they have for people that they survey are those who are born again. But think about this, this is how they define that. They say individuals qualify as born again if, and listen closely to this, they have at some time made a commitment to Jesus that is still important in their life today. There's a lot of vagueness in that. And, and then this is where they really are convinced, and they believe that when they die they will go to heaven. Okay, so we have at least two problems here. We have some who deny the doctrine of regeneration, deny that there is such a thing as being born again. And then you have a lot of people on the other side who will use the language of the new birth But what they mean by it is a moment in time where I had some personal commitment that I made to Jesus. You notice how that's me committing something at some point? And it's sort of important to me. I still look back at it and think, you know, that was interesting. That was something. I sort of mark that off in my life. And on that basis, I am absolutely convinced that I will go to heaven when I die. No thought about who Jesus is, what the content is, nothing about actual new life or the kind of work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts that the Bible speaks of. And then I think there's a third danger, and the third reason why we have to keep pressing this home, even in our context, and that's this, that For a variety of reasons, I think actually in many of our churches, this is not denied and not redefined really, but it's simply not talked about at all. It's simply not described at all. A little background on this book that you're getting. One of the reasons why I thought I should spend some time writing some things down on this is because I looked and said, well, is there anything modern on this topic? I mean, we have some great resources from the past. I praise the Lord for those. But what's the new book that talks about the new birth? It seems like something we should really be emphatic about. If it's that important, if it's you must be born again, if it's you cannot enter the kingdom of God, if it's part and parcel of the supernaturalism of Christianity. And again, it's perhaps I missed something, but there was very little, very little, a few things, but very little. And I think that actually is symptomatic of a broader problem. And the broader problem is, this is not really preached on. In the circles where the language is used, it's redefined. And in, I'll say, our circles, it's rarely used at all. And that's a different kind of problem, but it's a big problem. So the imperative that Jesus gives, the clear teaching that Jesus gives is not often assessed. Now, this couldn't be more vital. And there are a number of reasons for that. But I want to just show one. I think we only have five minutes until the Q&A. Who organized this? I want to say just one basic thing for this first session. Why is this so important? One reason it's so important is because if you look carefully at what the Bible teaches about the human heart, you realize that this must be the case for salvation to be accomplished in our lives. In other words, when you develop your doctrine of sin from the Bible, your doctrine of salvation, what you find is it addresses the issues in the doctrine of sin. And what I mean specifically is this. When you look at Genesis chapter 3, what you see are two very clear and obvious things. They're the same things the Apostle Paul saw and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that he said in Romans chapter 5. What you see, first of all, is as a result of Adam's sin, our Father's sin, as a result of that, there is an immediate a guilty verdict. There are consequences. There is judgment. And God says there will be, and there is, right away. And there are all kinds of obvious examples of this, but one that is very clear is they are immediately going to be kicked out of the garden and exiled, as it were, from that place of fellowship with God. And we're going to see just a page later in our Bible that they die. And then we're going to read about generations and generation after generation. The same phrase is repeated in Genesis. And he died and he died and he died and he died. And that's as if to drive a nail into our minds to say, what God said is that on the day you eat of it, you'll surely die, and here it is. There's a spiritual death that takes place, and there's a physical death, and Paul says this in Romans chapter five, in a kind of commentary on Genesis three through five. But there's something else that happens as well, and it's actually even more obvious in Genesis 3. You've probably noticed it when you've read Genesis 3, which is immediately, Adam and Eve's hearts are changed radically. And you can tell they're changed radically, because first of all, they hide from God, and they're ashamed, and when they're confronted about that, They turn on one another. Adam blames Eve, and there's blame placed on the serpent. They're at each other, and they're naked and ashamed, and they're hiding from God. In other words, you can sort of see the personality shift from Genesis 2 to Genesis 3. Genesis 2, this is bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. In Genesis 3, it's this woman that you placed with me, she made me do this. And if you think about that from a kind of character development standpoint, you say, well, what changed? This is not the Adam I knew from Genesis 2. Well, that's right. It's not the Adam you knew from Genesis 2. This is an Adam whose heart has been now radically changed. And from that point forward, if you thought that was a one-off, all you have to do is read Genesis 4 and you see this little beautiful new baby, Cain. You think, oh, maybe Cain is going to be, the answer, maybe Cain is gonna be different, maybe it's just restricted to Adam and Eve and they've changed and their hearts have been poisoned, but maybe Cain's isn't. And then you see this little baby Cain and very quickly he's offering false worship to God that's displeasing to the Lord. What a great sign of his hardness of heart, of his disobedience. He doesn't worship God in the way that God's asked to be worshipped. And then you see his attitude toward God has changed. And then, of course, that's going to lead to his murder of his brother. And so as that plays out through the Bible, what you find is the Bible then makes it very clear in every section of Scripture the sinfulness of the human heart from birth, so that it is no surprise at all when David, in confessing his sin with Bathsheba, will say, in sin my mother conceived me. And yet you desire truth in the innermost being. That is a problem. And it's a problem that, as we'll see, the Lord promises a solution for, but it is a big problem because what we see in both the Old Testament's definition of sin and the New Testament's, which are compatible, of course, what we see is that sin is not just a problem with action, but it is a problem with the heart. And so Jesus makes this very clear, but frankly the Old Testament makes this very clear as well. It is out of the heart that come evil thoughts and fornication and murder and adultery. All these things come from the heart. So what you see in the nature of sin then has to be addressed. in the doctrine of salvation. Sin involves objective guilt. It's universal. There's no person that you see in the Bible apart from the Lord Jesus Christ who escapes from it. In fact, actually, if you're reading your Bible carefully in the Old Testament, what you see is, for instance, with the kings or with any of the other prophetic voices, what you see is systematically God the Holy Spirit through the narrators makes it clear these are sinners. These are sinners who have, and it comes from the heart. And so Paul can say, again, in a kind of commentary on the Old Testament, there is none righteous, no not one. And all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And in Adam, all die. And you see it played out on the pages of scripture. Now, what are the implications of this? First of all, one implication is this, that therefore our preaching of the gospel, which I would argue must include this good news about the new birth, but in a sense prior to that, preaching the gospel must consist of preaching about the nature of sin and the fallenness of the human heart. I've kind of wondered, particularly as I was working on this, I've wondered why is it that in our circles we often don't preach about the new birth? Why is that? And I don't know all the answers, but one answer is because we don't also like to preach about sin and judgment. And if you don't drive that home, then you sort of don't need to drive this home. But remember what Jesus commanded his disciples. I'm always struck by this in Acts chapter 10. You know, Jesus, after his resurrection, spent time with his apostles, and we don't know all the things he taught, but we have these little glimpses where they speak about what he taught them after his resurrection, but before his ascension. And one of those is in Acts 10. And in Acts 10, 42, Peter describes the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the good news that that is, and how important those facts are. But then he says this, and he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify. And so here's Jesus' homiletics lesson to them during that time. Here's what you need to preach. That he is the one appointed by God to be the judge of the living and the dead. Oh, that's point one of our sermons. He's the judge of the living and the dead. And to him, all men must give an account. Jesus will judge you, you can ignore that, you can pretend that's not true, you can... do all kinds of things to distract yourself, but it is true. And so Jesus told Peter and the apostles, that's point one, you preach that. After you preach about who I am and my death and resurrection, then when you're applying to the people, he's the one appointed as the judge of the living and the dead. To him, all men must give an account. Point two is, to him, all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in his name receives forgiveness of sins through his name. And it's interesting because as Peter's recounting this homiletics lesson, it says right after that, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard, and they repented of their sin. This is the norm throughout history, actually. When the doctrine of the new birth is rediscovered, and there are periods in which it has been gloriously rediscovered within the church, when it is rediscovered, it is very often rediscovered and reemphasized against the backdrop of preaching about the judgment of Jesus Christ and the fallenness of the human heart. Because if that's not driven home, then this seems like maybe it is just a superficial thing. But it can't be a superficial thing once you begin to discern what the Bible teaches about sin and about the heart. Second thing is this, second point is this, and I'll leave it at that. for there to be a solution to this problem of sin in the heart, it has to address not just the universal guilt of sin, there is guilt, conviction, but it would also address the internal heart disposition to sin. So we have two things, we have guilt and corruption. We have the condemnation, guilt, talking now about not a subjective feeling, but an objective reality, guilt, but then also corruption or depravity, and both have to be addressed. In other words, God's salvation is supernatural, and it actually saves people. It saves them from the guilt of sin, and it saves them by giving them a new heart. I will reluctantly stop there because I'm six minutes over for questions. So what questions do you have? Are there questions? Oh yes. Going back to your first premise as it relates to