be finding your way to the book of Jeremiah in the Old Testament. We're going to look at four texts in the Old Testament, one in Jeremiah, three in the book of Ezekiel. It may have been a while since you visited these neighborhoods, but these are important texts that we'll be considering for a few moments this morning. Jeremiah chapter 31 first. The next one will be Ezekiel chapter 11 and Ezekiel chapter 18 and then Ezekiel chapter 36. Jeremiah chapter 31 verse 31. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." Now, Ezekiel chapter 11. I'll give you just a second to find it, Ezekiel 11, which is, of course, If you take a right, you will go through the lamentations, and then you will arrive in the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel 11, verse 14. The word of the Lord came to me, Son of man, your brothers, even your brothers, your kinsmen, the whole house of Israel, all of them are those of whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, go far from the Lord. To us this land is given for possession. Therefore say, thus says the Lord God, Though I removed them far off among the nations, and though I scattered them among the countries, yet I have been a sanctuary to them for a while in the countries where they have gone. Therefore say, thus says the Lord God, I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. And when they come there, they will remove from it all its detestable things and all its abominations, And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put in them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes, and keep My rules, and obey them. And they shall be My people, and I will be their God. But as for those whose heart goes after their detestable things and their abominations, I will bring their deeds upon their own heads, declares the Lord God. Now go over to chapter 18. Ezekiel chapter 18, verse 30. Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, everyone according to his ways, declares the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord. So turn and live." And then one more place, Ezekiel chapter 36, and then I'll let you rest. Ezekiel 36, and we'll begin at verse 16. The word of the Lord came to me, son of man, when the house of Israel lived in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and their deeds. Their ways before me were like the uncleanness of a woman and her menstrual impurity. So I poured out my wrath upon them for the blood that they had shed in the land, and for the idols with which they had defiled it. I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries in accordance with their ways and their deeds. I judged them. But when they came to the nations, wherever they came, they profaned My holy name, in that people said of them, These are the people of the Lord. And yet they had to go out of His land. But I had concern for My holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations to which they came. Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God, It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and to be careful to obey My rules. And you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers. And you shall be My people and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses, and I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations. Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations. It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord God. Let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel." And we'll stop there, and I would invite you, if you would, to keep your Bible open, in particular to Ezekiel 36. And we'll be looking at some things in these various texts for a little while this morning. I don't remember, I've tried to remember and I can't exactly where I was at, but not long ago I was somewhere and I saw a bumper sticker on the back of the car that I thought is a pretty good commentary on the land in which we live in. The bumper sticker just basically, this is what it said, born okay the first time. born okay the first time. Of course, what that was, was a backhanded slap at the Christian doctrine and the proclamation of the Scripture that says that man was not born okay the first time, but that man must be born again. Those are the words of the Lord Jesus in John chapter 3. We shouldn't be surprised by such things as that because we live in a land that for decades now, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, We have made an industry out of trying to tell ourselves how wonderful we are, how good we are, and that the only real problem we have is that we don't realize how wonderful we are and we don't love ourselves enough. And if we could just all love ourselves enough and believe how wonderful we are, then all of our problems would be solved and our land would become a utopia. And that basically is what is preached to our children in the school systems and in the culture in general everywhere we turn. We are bombarded with this message that you're okay, I'm okay, and there is no real need that we have except to discover how okay We really are. And that's why undoubtedly this person put the bumper sticker on their car that essentially said, I do not need to be born again. I was born okay the first time. I'm fine and I do not need a savior and I do not need a gospel. And I do not need God to intervene in my situation to rescue me from my sins because I am okay regardless of what you believe about me, I'm okay. That's the culture in which we live. The sad thing is that not only is that so blatantly false, and yet it's preached continually in the culture in which we live, that very same doctrine of self-love and the worship of man has been Christianized. by many false teachers in our land who no longer preach the gospel but preach about how wonderful we are as man and how that we are the center of all things and God simply exists to serve us and to make all our dreams and all our wishes and all our desires come true. And there are false teachers in our land who have made untold millions of dollars preaching that false teaching to men and women. And that's something that the natural man loves and that appeals to the natural man. And because of that, the natural man will gravitate toward that false teaching. The only problem with that is that according to Jesus Christ, we are not born okay the first time. We are not born good. We are born exceedingly evil, depraved, lost, separated from God, alienated from God, and in need of another birth according to Scripture. It was the Lord Jesus Himself who said, you must be born again. And that could have been translated, born from above. You must be born supernaturally again from above by a supernatural act of God. And no one, these are the words of the Lord Jesus, no one can see the Kingdom of God unless they are born again. Not only does that mean that no one will ever enter into the Kingdom of God without this supernatural birth, But it also means that no one can even understand or discern or see what the kingdom of God is all about apart from this supernatural birth. The reality is that we live in a land where even in the churches a lot of people do not believe in the necessity of a supernatural birth from God. But the Bible could not be plainer. That without this supernatural birth, without this supernatural acting of God upon the human soul, no one can even discern the Kingdom of God, and no one can possibly enter in to the Kingdom of God. Now that's why I was a lost church member for so many years. I'm one of the kids that went forward in the revival. I'm one of the kids that went to the altar. I'm one of the kids that went up there and prayed. I'm one of the kids that made it down to the baptismal pool but had never been transformed. by a powerful work of God within. I was an adult, a lost church member before I was ever truly born from above. Before God ever mightily and miraculously worked in me, I was an adult. I was 20 years old when God called me to Himself and when God saved me by His grace and I was born from above. I was deceived for many years. I was a lost church member. I was a person that would come and sit in Sunday school and didn't have a clue as to what was going on. And I would listen to the sermons and didn't really have a clue as to what was going on because I never had been born from above. I'd made it to the altar. I'd said the prayer. I'd been to the baptismal pool. But I'd never been supernaturally born from above. And I never began to understand or to discern or to experience the things of God in reality until God birthed me into His Kingdom by His grace and by His power. Jesus said you must be born again. No one can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven unless they have been born again. But you know the amazing thing, one of the amazing things about that story in John chapter 3 to me, is that Nicodemus was a teacher in Israel and he didn't understand what he was talking about. Nicodemus was so confused by what he was talking about that Jesus said, are you a teacher of Israel? And you don't understand these things? You don't understand the new birth? Here you are, the leader and the teacher of the people of Israel, and you don't understand the new birth? And when Jesus began to talk about the new birth, Nicodemus all he could say was, how can a man when he's old be born again? How can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? He had no concept of a spiritual birth from above. He had no concept of that. And Jesus said, are you a teacher of Israel? And you don't understand these things? Now that tells me that the doctrine of the new birth, or the necessity of the new birth, is not some new and novel doctrine that Jesus introduced, but it's something that was taught in the Old Testament. And the texts that we read this morning are texts from the Old Testament prophets that speak of this great supernatural work that God does in a person's life that we call regeneration or that we call the new birth. And as I began to look at these things this morning and I began to read these texts and meditate on them, I began to realize that these Old Testament texts wonderfully, clearly teach wonderful truths about what God in grace does in a soul when He gives that soul life. So what I want to do this morning is I want to preach on the new birth from the Old Testament. And I want us to see some things in these texts for a few moments. that really communicate from the Old Testament the very things that Jesus said in the New Testament and that the apostles said in the New Testament, but they declare what God does in a human soul when He gives that soul life. So let's consider these things for a few minutes this morning. And then we'll be done. And we'll look at several of these texts, but most of our time will be spent in Ezekiel chapter 36. And here's the first thing I want you to think about from these texts this morning. The Bible here makes it clear that whenever the new birth occurs in a human soul, it involves the removal of a heart of stone. It involves the removal of a heart of stone. Now look at Ezekiel chapter 36 and verse 26. The Lord said, I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. So one of the things that God does in giving life to a dead sinner is He removes from that individual a heart of stone. Now what in the world could that possibly be speaking about and what in the world could that possibly mean? Well, it communicates something about the spiritual condition of those who are not in Christ. And that is that their heart is like a heart of stone. And that has to mean nothing other than this, that by our very nature, our hearts are cold, our hearts are hard, our hearts are dead, and our hearts are unfeeling. By our very nature in our sinful condition, our hearts are cold, our hearts are dead, our hearts are hard, our hearts are unfeeling, and our hearts are unresponsive. Now let me ask you a question. Since you have been converted, especially right after you were converted, did you ever ask yourself the question, how can the people who live their lives around me, who are not in Christ, How can they continue on in the way that they continue on when they are one heartbeat away from a Christless eternity? How in the world can they live the way they live without any fear, without any concern, without any sense that the wrath of God is upon them? And I can answer that question for you this morning. It's because they are spiritually dead and their heart is as hard as stone. They have no ability to feel their lostness and their hopelessness and their blindness and their nearness to eternity. Isn't it an amazing thing to you? It always is to me. That every day we pick up a newspaper that has a page of obituaries in it. And every day, nearly, we drive by cemeteries with headstones that declare that every human being is a terminal case. and that continually we're going to the funeral home to visit the families of people that we know who are grieving over the loss of a loved one. We are continually reminded of our mortality and the fact that 100 out of 100 people die, and yet man in his sinfulness lives as if he will never die with no fear of God and no concern for the judgment. How is it that man does that? I've had this happen many times in my ministry where someone was very sick or someone may have even been on death's door. It happened just last year. And I was called and they said, would you go? My loved one is in the hospital. They do not know Christ. They're lost. They're very sick. We don't know whether they'll live. Would you go up there and would you talk to them and pray with them and share the gospel with them? And just within the last year or so, I went to the hospital. I sat down beside a man that I'd talked to many times. And I began to talk to him about the grave, grave matters of eternity, the grave matters of our sin and the judgment of God and the wrath of God, the nearness of death, the certainty of the judgment. And this man would look at me and he would agree with everything I say, only to say, well, we'll talk about it when I get home. But he never came home. And at his funeral, which I preached, the family would come around and say, do you think he was ever saved? And I would say, well, they just told me when I talked to him, I'll talk to you about it when I get home. Now, how can a person be that near death? and have someone in compassion and love sit down and share the gospel message with them and be totally unfeeling, unaffected, unmoved and unresponsive. Here's how. Their heart is as cold and hard and dead and unresponsive as a stone. You go to a stone and try to preach to it and see how it responds. Go to a stone and lay your hand against it and see how cold. Fall upon a stone and see how hard and unpliable that stone is. And the Bible here is picturing the sinful condition of man that our hearts and our sin are naturally cold and dead and unfeeling and unresponsive. And this is how men can carelessly, day after day, go on their way, living their life and heading to perdition. That's how they can do it. This is how men get up every day. Have you ever asked yourself the question, My life would have no meaning were it not for Christ. How do people in this world live without Christ? How do they get up every day and put their clothes on and go to work without Christ? How do they face the trials of life without Christ? How do they face the sorrows of life without Christ? Why do they bother to even care about things that people care about without Christ? Because their life can have no meaning. I'll tell you why. Because their hearts are as cold and dead and unresponsive as a stone. They're just operating like a robot, living to fulfill the desires of the flesh and of the mind, living to get something to some entertainment, some pleasure, some earthly pursuit, some possession. But in reality, their hearts are dead and cold. And when God does a work in the heart of a sinner, One of the things that he does is he takes out that hardened, stony heart. He takes it out. He changes it. He makes it new. That's the only explanation I can find for how that God will take someone that is totally careless and change them in a moment of time. How that God can take someone that's totally unconcerned and create in them a concern in a moment of time. How that God can take someone who does not care for the gospel, will not listen to the gospel, and in a moment of time, change him to a person that can't get enough of the gospel. He takes out that stony heart. And only God can do that. And I want to say something to clarify in case you misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not talking about the prostitute. I'm not talking about the drunkard. I'm not talking about the thief. I'm not talking about the inmate in the prison. Some of the most stone-hardened hearts in our land are sitting on church pews this morning, and they are convinced of how good and how moral and how religious and all of the things they do and all of the money they give, and they have no clue as to how lost and how hopeless they are. And their heart is as hard as stone. And only God can take that hardened, cold heart out of them. Number two, not only does the new birth involve the removal of a heart of stone, but it involves the giving of a new heart. One is the negative side of it, the other is the positive side of it. He takes out the heart of stone, but He gives the new heart. In Ezekiel 36 again, in verse 26, I will give you a new heart. I will give you a new heart. I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I'm going to take away that old, stony, hard, cold, dead, unresponsive heart. But when I do that, I'm going to give you a new heart. I'm going to replace that cold, dead heart with a heart of flesh, a heart that can feel. A heart that can respond, a heart that can know, a heart that is affected. I'm going to take the dead cold heart and I'm going to give you a new heart. This is essentially what God does. When He regenerates a sinner, He changes them, He breaks them, He softens them, and He makes their heart that was once unresponsive, He makes it responsive to the Word of God. This is surely what the Bible is talking about in the New Testament when it says, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. He is a new creation. Now let me show you the difference between religion and regeneration. Religion tries to start on the outside, changing the man, working its way in, and it always fails. God starts on the inside by giving the individual a new heart, and it manifests itself in the way that the individual lives. God starts at the very core of our being. And this is the greatest of all works. This is a supernatural work. Let me ask you a question. How many of you have found your inability to change yourself? The reality is, real change occurs in the inner man by the supernatural work of God. Now, we all understand once we've been born again, we are to develop the gifts that God has given unto us and we are to grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord. But at our very core, we must be given a new heart. You want to know why churches are often in such a terrible mess in our day? You want to know why many ministers are quitting the ministry every year? It's hard. Pastoring goats. It's hard. It's hard to do. When we've created a religious environment, where we're bringing people into our churches that have never been born of God and telling them that they're Christians, and then we're trying to tell them how to act like Christians when they don't have the heart to live like a Christian because they've never been made new by the supernatural work of God. In my opinion, you can believe what you want to believe, but God giving a human being in their sinfulness a new heart is as great a miracle as when God set the sun in the universe. It's a miracle. One of the things I'm reminded of whenever I'm discouraged in preaching Is that if God can change me, He can change anybody. If God can save me, He can save anybody. If God can give me a new heart, He can give anybody a new heart. It is an act of supernatural power. It is God's divine work in a human soul. He takes out that old heart of stone and He replaces it with a new heart, a heart of flesh, and He gives that person who was careless and blind and dead and unfeeling and unresponsive, He gives them a new heart and in that they begin to feel and to love and to care and to follow and to respond to the Word of God. Because God has changed them at the very core of their being. He gives them a new heart. Number three, in the new birth, not only does God remove the heart of stone, not only does He give to a sinner a new heart, but He also gives to the sinner His Holy Spirit. In Ezekiel 36 again, verse 27, I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to obey My rules. The very root of the change in the life of the sinner is that God Himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit, has come to live in the sinner's heart. He said, I will put My Spirit within you. Now, the Holy Spirit is what? He's holy, isn't He? And He is part of the Godhead. He is one of the three Persons in the Divine Trinity. Do you understand that the reason that the sinner is so drastically changed when they are born again is because God Himself in the person of the Holy Spirit comes to live within the sinner and He imparts to the sinner the divine nature. And the sinner cannot remain the same. He must be a new creation. He must be different. Because God has given to the sinner the Holy Spirit. Now how many people in our culture think that being a Christian is related to the fact that they attend the church? or related to a fact that they read the Bible, or related to a fact that they have been baptized, or related to a fact that they live in America, or related to a fact that their family has went to a Christian church, or related to a fact that they are a moral person, they're not an evil person in their own estimation, or that's related to the fact that they've turned over a new leaf. How many people in our culture think that's what it means to be a Christian? But the Bible could not be clearer. No one who does not have the Holy Spirit imparted to their inner man by the grace of God, no one can rightly call God Father, and no one is a genuine Christian apart from this impartation of divine life. Every Christian has the Holy Spirit given to them when they are born again. Every single Christian. Not a super deluxe version. That's the only version there is. So we go, well, am I a Christian? Or if we ask ourselves, am I really a child of God? The question is not, will I go to church? I must be a child of God. A lot of people go to church that are not. Well, I do this and I do that. And the question is, does the Holy Spirit live within me and does He consistently bear His fruit in my heart and in my life? Is there real evidence that I have been born from above and that God has imparted to me spiritual life by placing His very life, His Spirit, in my inner man? There are multitudes of people who can't seem To see that. Last time I was up at the prison and preached, when I walked out, a man at the back door, he said, I want to ask you a question. I'm not trying to be controversial. He said, what do you believe about the Holy Spirit? Does every Christian have the Holy Spirit? I said, yes, you're not a Christian if you don't have the Holy Spirit. I said every Christian needs to be being continually filled with the Holy Spirit. But in 1 Corinthians we are told that it's the Spirit of God who baptizes us into the body of Jesus Christ, who makes us one of God's own. It's not just some mental decision. It's not just some mental activity. It's not just the acceptance of a series of facts. It's not just the belief of a certain group of principles. There must be a supernatural event that changes you where the Spirit of God is imparted to your inner man. Number four, this new birth involves the casting away of our sin. Notice, it's interesting to me in Ezekiel 36, notice what? Ezekiel writes, and he's writing as God is speaking to him. And notice what God says in verse 31. Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations. Now, does that sound like modern Preaching that says, oh, just believe how wonderful you are, you're wonderful, don't think ill of yourself, you're wonderful, you're good at your very core, you're really a good person. No. God here is saying, whenever I do this work in your heart, you're going to realize how sinful you are and you're going to loathe yourself because of your iniquities and because of your abominations. In Ezekiel chapter 18, in the verses that we read, The writer writes about the necessity of repentance. And notice the language that Ezekiel writes. He goes, repent, in verse 30, and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Involved in the new birth is The ability that is granted by God in the soul to repent. In 2 Timothy chapter 2, repentance is spoken of by the Apostle Paul as something that God grants the sinner. It is not in man to repent on his own. Men do not even understand their need to repent. They don't understand the need, and repentance is this. Repentance is sorrow for sin, but it's much more than just sorrow for sin. It is a turning from sin and turning to God. And once a sinner is born again, they begin a lifelong exercise of repentance. There is a casting away of our sins, a realizing that our sins are an affront to God. I will never forget this. Whenever God began to call me and draw me to Himself, and God had been working on me for years, and God had been dealing with me for years, but whenever God began to call me and God really began to deal with my heart, I began to see the heinousness of my crimes against God. And I realized that God had loved me and that God had pursued me, but that I had blasphemed His name every way that a man could blaspheme his name. That I despised His love. And I saw my sin in light of the holiness of God. And there came a point that I wanted to cast my sins away. I wanted to live differently. I wanted to be different. I wanted a new life. I wasn't coming to Christ and saying, save me and leave me in my sins. I was coming and saying, rescue me from my sins. Change me. I hate this. I hate what I am. Make me new. That's involved in the new birth. And you need to understand this because we live in a world where this is not taught. A supposed salvation that leaves you without repentance cannot be genuine. It cannot be. I understand our repentance is never all that it should be, but it must be there and it must be existent. But a profession of salvation that does not produce repentance, sorrow for your sin, and a willingness to throw your sins away and to run to Christ is suspect and not genuine. It involves the casting away of our sin. Another thing, the new birth involves the writing of God's law on our hearts. Notice the language. In every text we read, this is what is said. Ezekiel 36, verse 27. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to obey My rules. I'm going to put My Spirit in you and by putting My Spirit in you, I'm going to cause you to walk in My statutes and to be careful to obey My rules. You have it in Ezekiel chapter 11, if you want to turn back there. Same thing. Verse 19, I will give them one heart and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh that they may walk in My statutes and keep My rules and obey them. And you have exactly the same thing back in Jeremiah chapter 31. I will put my law, where? Within them. I will put my law within them and I will write it, where? On their hearts. On their hearts. Now surely, if this means anything, it means this. That whatever the Holy Spirit gives life to a dead sinner and comes to live within them, He writes on their hearts the very moral law of God. He writes on their hearts the moral law of God. Now let's think about this for just a minute. Whenever the Bible says we're not under law, we're under grace, does that mean that we have no duty to the moral law of God as believers? It can't mean that. Because God's moral law is simply an expression of God's holy character. Right? So when it says we're not under law, we're under grace, what does that mean? We're not saved by attempting to keep the law. We're saved by God's grace through the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ. But once we are saved by grace and the Spirit of God comes to live within us, what does the Spirit of God do? He teaches us, as it says in Titus chapter 3, to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live righteously and soberly and godly in this present world. So the Spirit of God comes to live within us and He writes the moral law upon our heart and He gives us a new desire, a desire to obey. Not only does He give us a desire to obey, He also gives us power to obey, strength to obey. And He writes God's law on our heart, and because of that, God's grace will never produce lawlessness, will it? And once in a while you'll come across someone saying, if I preach what you preach, or if you preach what you believe, if you believe what you say you believe, that's just giving people a license to sin. Never. God's love will never, if it's understood and grasped by a human heart, will never produce lawlessness in a sinner. It will produce gratitude, adoration, amazement, worship, But it'll never produce lawlessness. See, when God saves a sinner, He writes the moral law on their hearts. So if someone is just habitually, continually stealing, and they go, well, I'm a sinner, I'm saved, and I'm a Christian, and I'm not under the law, I'm under grace. We go, that's absurd. Because God Himself, living in you if you were a Christian, would teach you not to do that. Right? So the sinner is not sinless, correct? The sinner, when he's regenerated, is not sinless, but he's transformed. And the law of God is written. in his heart. Now this is something we need to really think about as individuals. You know, you need to wrestle with this and think through all this. Because here's a problem. I come across people all the time that are sitting in our churches and they say they believe God's Word and they believe God's truth and they stand for God's truth. But then when it comes down to them choosing between their own sinful desires and what God has said, their own sinful desires win out. There's something wrong with that. There's something wrong with that. If I'm up here every day preaching to you about the new birth and the fact that the Spirit of God lives within me and He's written God's law on my heart, and you know that I'm operating a business and I'm stealing from people, can you not deduce That there's something terribly inconsistent and terribly wrong about that? Because you know as well as I do as a Christian, if you really are a Christian, that the Spirit of God will take His finger in your heart and say, no, no, no, you can't do that. You can't do that. You're mine. You can't do that. He writes His law on our hearts. The new birth involves our actual adoption as God's people. Notice the text, and it's particularly clear in Jeremiah chapter 31. Notice how Jeremiah writes it. In verse 33, I will put My law within them, I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. One of the things that happens when the Lord regenerates a sinner and gives him life is He makes real to us by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit the fact that we really are God's child. That He's ours and we're His. That He has forgiven all of our sins, that He's washed away all of our guilt. And He implants within us a knowledge of our relationship. Now think about this. Is there anything more absurd than for someone as wicked as me to call God my Father. So how can I possibly with any sense of honesty and confidence do such a thing? It's because His Spirit bears witness with my spirit that I'm a child of God. That I'm really one of His. and that He's mine. And it's no absurdity for me to call Him Father, because His Son has taken my place, suffered in my place, and carried away all of my guilt. And He has written that on the heart of the regenerated sinner. One more thing, and I'll quit. Go back to Ezekiel 36 real quick if you're not there. And I want you to notice, I did this this morning because it caught my eye as I was reading through these texts. Did you know that from verse 22 to the end of the chapter, 16 times, you know what God says? I will do something. I'll cleanse them. I'll write my law in their hearts. I'll take away their heart of stone. I will give them a new heart." Sixteen times, I will, I will, I will, I will. And how many times does it say, they will? The lesson is simply this, that the new birth involves God's initiative and God's action. It's something that God does. And God alone can do. It's not that man seeks God and God responds to man's seeking. It's that God is the author and the finisher. God does it all. God seeks us. God calls us. God imparts life to us. God convicts us. God awakens us. God takes out that old stony heart. God puts in a new heart. God puts His Holy Spirit in our hearts. It's all of God. Read down through here. Don't take my word for it. Go home and read down through here. Read through chapter 36. And over and over, God said, I will do this. I will do that. And he goes on down to say, the reason I will do it is not for your sake, but I'm only going to do it for the sake of my holy name. In this particular context, he is rebuking them for the fact that they had profaned his name among the Gentile nations. And what he's saying is, I'm going to do what I'm going to do for you, but not just for you. I'm going to do it to bring glory and honor to my name. I'm going to vindicate my holiness. Now think your way through this. Now look at me and I'm going to say something. If you don't realize it this morning, if you're here and you're saved, If you're here and you're not saved, and the Lord saves you before you leave this life, one million years from this morning, you're going to realize that God's salvation that He gave to you, was something that he absolutely had no obligation to do. And that it was for the glory of His name. One million years from this morning, You and I are going to be talking about His glory. Listen, a million years from this morning, Daniel and I are not going to be sitting around talking about how smart we were. We're not even going to talk about the day that I spent with him in the truck and shared the gospel with him. We're going to be looking at our Lord Jesus and saying, the only reason we are here is so that He would magnify His holy name. One million years from today. And we're going to look at Him throughout the endless ages of eternity and realize He owed us nothing but wrath. And He could have passed us by and been totally just in giving us wrath. But instead He said, so that the whole universe will know how gracious, how wonderful, how kind, how merciful, how good I am. I'm going to save you and make you my child. And throughout the endless ages of eternity, we'll be saying, oh, what a Savior. Oh, hallelujah. See, there's really basically two things we can do as Christians for our fellow man. Pray for them. Preach the gospel to them. But God has to save them. He alone can. Who can take a stony heart and make it a heart of flesh but God? Who can put the Spirit of God in a human spirit but God? Who can give someone that loves their sin the ability to desire to cast away their sins but God? So the glory must all be His. Let's pray.