I love to tell the story. Those like this, I love to tell the story of unseen things above Jesus And then the last verse says I love to tell the story for those who know it best Seem hungry and thirsty to hear it like the rest and when it sings of glory I sing a new new song Will be the same old story That I have loved so long When the elders asked me to speak this morning we talked about that my gift is evangelism I'm a retired police officer. I spent over two decades with the Raleigh Police Department, but God moved on my heart to go from law to grace. And so I spent 30 years in the ministry with Child Evangelist Fellowship. And I have enjoyed and had the opportunity to lead dozens, if not hundreds, of people to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm grateful for God using me. But that's the story that I love to tell, and this morning that's the story we'll hear. And I do hope you're hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest. If you're already born again and know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, hopefully you'll say, oh, I want to hear it again anyway. So open your Bibles with me this morning to the Gospel of John chapter 3. One of, if not the most familiar passages of Scripture in the whole Bible, if you like professional football like I did growing up, you probably saw some fanatics in the end of the stadium holding up a big sign that said John 3.16. That wasn't his address. He was trying to be a witness for the Lord. And so, we're going to begin this morning by reading that one verse. That will be our text for our sermon, but don't get excited, that doesn't mean it's going to be a short sermon. It's just going to be a short text. John chapter 3, verse 16. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, And whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Let's go to the Lord in prayer again and ask Him to bless everyone in His Word as we look at this chapter this morning. Heavenly Father, we thank You for another opportunity to talk about Your Son, the Lord Jesus. We love Him. We are grateful for his sacrifice for our wicked sins. And I pray, Heavenly Father, that your Holy Spirit would move amongst our Jews here this morning in our hearts. And that from your word, you would do the work that you want to do, that each one of us need. Father, we do thank you for this account that we can read about the dialogue between Nicodemus and the Lord Jesus. And I pray that you would bless my heart again this morning, Father, as we read this familiar text, and that it would do a work in our lives so that when we go out this afternoon and this coming week, we would love to tell the story, and that we would share it with those that we come in contact with. And I ask this prayer, Father, in the name of your wonderful Son, Lord Jesus. Amen. John chapter 3 is a very interesting chapter that begins with a man named Nicodemus. Says he was a ruler of the Jews. He was in the hierarchy of the Jewish religion. And it tells us that he came to Jesus by night. And a lot of people make a big deal about this. We don't really know why Nicodemus came to Jesus by night. Maybe he just got off work late. Or maybe he was ashamed. to be associated with Jesus because his colleagues were at odds already with the Lord Jesus because of jealousy. They were jealous because more people were following Jesus than were following them. They were jealous because Jesus could work miracles. They could work miracles. They were jealous because people would listen to Jesus and people were not listening to them. So maybe Nicodemus came to Jesus by night because he didn't want his colleagues to know that he was coming to talk to Jesus. I don't know. But that had very little to do with the text that we're looking at today. Today the text that we're looking at is about how a person can get to heaven from Asheville, North Carolina. That's where we are. It doesn't matter what we think. What matters is what the Word of God says. And it says that this man, Nicodemus, who we read about three times in the Bible. We read about him all three times in the Gospel of John. He shows up in John chapter 7 and verse 50 when they're arguing about Jesus. And Nicodemus says, Does the law judge any man before it hears him? And they look at Nicodemus and they say, well, no prophet of righteousness out of Galilee searched the scriptures because they thought Jesus was born in Galilee. Nobody ever asked him where he was born. That might have cleared up some questions. And you know, a lot of times I've talked about things when I didn't know all the circumstances. Have you ever done that? You don't know all the facts and you put in your two cents worth and later on you realize, well, I really didn't know what I was talking about because I didn't know all the facts. Well, that's the way the Pharisees were. And so that was the conversation there. John chapter 7 with Nicodemus. They kind of tried to shoot him down. And then the last time we read about Nicodemus is when he's with Joseph of Arimathea. at the foot of the cross after Jesus had died and he's taking Jesus' lifeless body down with Joseph of Arimathea and wrapping it up and putting spices on it. So maybe he came to Jesus at night to begin with because he was timid, but at the end he wasn't. He was a full-blown believer in the Lord Jesus. And one day, those of us who had trusted in the Lord Jesus as our Savior will get to shake hands with him conveniently. Because he went from being timid to being a full-blown follower of the Lord Jesus all the way to the cross, doing something that even his disciples wouldn't do. But we pick up this time in chapter 3, in verse 3 it says, Jesus answered him, talking about Nicodemus, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, talking back to Jesus, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb? Jesus explained to Nicodemus that you must be born from above. Born again, literally it can be translated. Born from above. Born from God. We find that in the opening verses of the Gospel of John. In John chapter 1. It begins in verse 10 of John chapter 1. Jesus, He was in the world and the world was made by Him. And the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them there be power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name. And that word believe there is the word that goes all the way through the Gospel of John. I don't know how many times that word is said, but that's the whole meaning of this Gospel. Believe, believe, believe, believe. This is the first time you see the words of the gospel of John Here in this verse But as many as received him to them gave you power to become the sons of God even to them that believe On his name which were born Here we're talking about the second birth which were born not of blood You can't be in the kingdom of God because of the earthly family you were born into. I was born into the Bailey family. And I'm not a believer in the Lord Jesus because I was born into the Bailey family, not because of Bailey blood. God doesn't have any grandchildren. He only has children. And so it was not by blood that I became a believer of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then it says, nor of the will of the flesh. My mom and daddy could not will me to be a Christian. They could not will me to believe in the Lord Jesus. As much as we would like to get our relatives and our friends into the kingdom of God, we cannot will them to be born again. Then it says another way that you can't be born again, nor of the will of man. I can't will myself to stop sin. I can't will myself to be righteous. I can't will myself to be justified with God. Well, how can I be born again? And then it tells you the answer at the end of the verse. which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but were born of God. Every person that is a Bible-believing, on their way to heaven, Christian, was born by God. By His Holy Spirit, in 1 Corinthians 3.16, says, Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? Whenever a person puts their faith and trust in the finished work of the Lord Jesus dying on the cross for their sins, God sends his Holy Spirit to live inside that person and seals them till the day that he redeems them to heaven and changes them and gives them a new body. They're born again instantaneously the moment they leave. You don't ooze into the Christian life. You're born again. And so everyone has a physical birth. But to go into the Kingdom of God, you have to have spiritual birth. Nicodemus in chapter 3 here is all confused. And he asks Jesus in verse 4, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? You know, we are so used to the things around us. We're used to this world. We're used to the world we're living in today. Planet Earth. But there's another world. There's an invisible world. There is a spirit world. Jesus said, God is a spirit, but they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. In this room right now, there may be demons and angels swirling around, roaring for your hearing right now. Maybe a demon wants to distract you and an angel wants to push him aside. Say, no, get out of here. Let them listen. Let them listen to the Word of God. Oh, if we could see what's going on in the unseen realms around us. As I watch television, and probably you do too, I watch Fox News sometimes, and I hear these world leaders on the world stage, and I hear them talking to one another, and we think it's people doing stuff. Oh, if we could see behind the scenes what Satan and his emissaries are doing in the lives of these world leaders. You see, God has raised up world leaders. It tells us in Romans chapter 13 that the authorities that are ordained of God. And it also says in the Bible that He raises up the bases of men to be over us. I didn't raise up the good people to be over us. God's got his own way of doing things. But there's an unseen world going on around us. And Jesus alludes to that here in this passage that we're looking at this morning. He says in verse 5, Verily, verily, I say unto you, 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. 1 Corinthians 15 talks about, this is the resurrection chapter, and Paul tells the church of Christ, there is a physical world and there is a spiritual world. And unless a person is born again by the Spirit of God, he'll not see the Kingdom of God. Jesus says, let me illustrate it to you, Nicodemus. Listen, and so let's pick up that illustration in verse 8. The wind blows where it is listed, and you hear the sound of it, but you can't tell where it comes from or where it's going. So is everyone that is born of the Spirit. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, and canst not tell where it cometh or where it goeth, so is every one that is born of the Spirit. You can't see it. Nobody's ever seen a pint of wind. But we would be ridiculous if we tried to tell the scientists there's no such thing as wind. But as I talk to people about the Lord Jesus, I hear this often, I don't believe anything I can't see. I say that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. We'd all be bumping our heads on the ceiling if there wasn't gravity in here, wouldn't we? But nobody's ever seen gravity. There are physics. There are things in this world, real things, that you can't see. If we were to turn our radio in right here right now, we could turn the dial and pick up dozens if not hundreds of radio stations. They're going through the room right now. Now if you bring somebody here from 200 years ago and tell them that, show them your cell phone and say, I can talk to somebody in France right now from this little device. And say, you've lost your mind. There's no way you can do that. Not only can I do it, they'll hear my voice and I'll hear the other person's voice. It's really amazing, isn't it? We're so used to it that we've lost the amazement of it. You know, I remember when the telephone voice, you picked it up and your neighbor down the street was talking and you said, I'd like to make a call. Could you get off? You had a party line. Now we carry our phone around in our pockets. But if you were to tell somebody that's been born in this century, there's no such thing as a cell phone. It's impossible for you to talk to somebody else over a cell phone. There certainly is. I experience it all the time. You do what? I experience it all the time. I do it all the time. I heard a debate between an atheist and a Christian recently about whether or not God was real. And the atheist asked the Christian, prove me that there's a God. Prove to me there's a God. And he said, well sir, have you ever loved anybody He said, why are you asking me that? Just entertaining. Have you ever loved, have you ever had love for somebody, professor? Yeah, I think I have. He said, prove it. Is love real? Absolutely. Well, you can't prove it, you have to experience it. The last time I was on this platform, I was married to that pretty woman down there. Because on Father's Day last year, I came and asked her if she would get to know me better. And in a few weeks, I fell in love with her. And I was going to try not to fall in love with her. I wanted her to get to know her. I wanted to make sure And in a few weeks, I was already in love that morning. I'm experiencing it right now. I have a deep and a passionate love for Elizabeth. I have a deep and a passionate love for God because I have experienced being born again. I want to share with everybody this morning how I've come to faith in my Savior, the Lord Jesus. I've had the tragedy of having two wives, Donna, and Beth is my third wife. I've been married over 40 years already. But I came home from work one day on the police department at 11 o'clock at night, crawled into bed with my wife, and she rolled over and woke up. She says, honey, you know what I did tonight? I said, oh, what did you do? She said, I got saved. Indignant. I said, you got saved? Because I thought we were both Christians. We had a Christian wedding. We had communion at our wedding. We had two candles. We lit as one. We had it in the church. We'd both been baptized. And she said this to me, no tonight for the first time I realized I was a sinner and I trusted in Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of my sins. And then she turned over and went back to sleep. Laying in the darkness of my bedroom for the first time I understood all the sermons I'd heard all my life. Everything about God and about Jesus and about the cross came into perfect focus. When she said she was a sinner, it was like hitting me between the eyes with a bat. Because compared to me, she was a saint. And I realized for the first time I was a sinner and I needed to trust in Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of my sins. Under my breath, not out loud, I said to God, Father, I know I'm a sinner, and I'm trusting in Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of my sins. And I went to sleep. No rushing wind, no fires, no lights flashing. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, not corporeal. But that which is born of the Spirit is invisible. You can't get a jar of it, you can't see it, but it's just as real. I didn't even recognize that God had saved my soul and changed me from the inside. My wife and I, we started going to church more regularly, and it wasn't long before the preacher that I couldn't stand to begin with, that I ended up loving, come to me one day and said, Dennis, did you get saved? I said, yeah, I think I did. I was born again because I put my faith and trust in the finished work of the Lord Jesus. How did it happen? God did it. I was born of God because I had real faith in the Lord Jesus Christ at that moment. I didn't will it to happen. It wasn't because of my bloodline. It wasn't because people were praying me into the kingdom. It was because God saved me in that very moment. Well, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. And I will be saved for all eternity because God has put His Holy Spirit inside of me, and He has sealed me to the day of redemption. He's trying to give an illustration for the academics here about the wind. The wind blows where it visits, and I hear the sound thereof, but you can't tell where it comes from, and you don't know where it's going, so is everyone that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus in verse 9 says, How can these things be? Why do scientists have so much trouble with God? Why does one person who is a scientist go to the Grand Canyon and say, this was carved out over millions of years. And a Christian can go and look at the Grand Canyon and say, I believe this happened during the flood. You can look at the same evidence and come to two different conclusions. You see, God has to open our understanding and our mind and our eyes. Nicodemus does not yet have his understanding of it. He's thinking physical. He's thinking the law of Moses. He's thinking religion. He's thinking the temple. He's thinking animal sacrifices. You're not talking about any of that stuff. You're talking about the wind. Who are you, Jesus? So Jesus said, let's go back to the Old Testament, Nicodemus. He says, let me give you another illustration. Verse 11, he says, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen, and ye receive not our witness. Do you notice that he's talking in the plural there? We, our, us. Why are you saying it like that, Jesus? Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. You see, Jesus is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. They're three in one. And He's using the plural because He's speaking correctly. And then he says, if I've told you earthly things and you don't believe, how should you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven. Speaking of himself, he was the son of man which is in heaven. Wait a minute, I'm standing here talking to you. What do you mean you're in heaven? If you don't understand spiritual truth, sometimes the Bible can be a mystery to you. When Jesus would tell His followers, except you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you'll have no part in me. They said, this is a hard saving. Because they were thinking physical. And Jesus said, the words I speak unto you are of Spirit. I'm trying to get spiritual truth across to you. And He was trying to. Look at this. And so He goes back to the Old Testament Book of Knowledge, chapter 21. In the Old Testament, when the children of Israel had come out of Egypt and they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years because of their unbelief, at one point they were murdering against God like they did all the time. God will do a wonderful miracle for them, they all rejoice, and in a few weeks they're all complaining again. And in this particular instance in Numbers chapter 21, God sent voiceless snakes into the camp to judge them. And snakes started blagging them, and people started dying. Sometimes, God's judgment is severe. And so the Bible tells us in Numbers 21 they were fiery serpents and they come into the camp and they would bite people and they would be poisonous snakes and they would die. And they came to Moses and they said, Moses, we have sinned. S-I-N-N-E-D. That's my name spelled backwards. D-E-N-N-I-A-S. So when I look in a mirror, if you see everything backwards, I'm looking at a sinner. We have sinned. And Moses goes to God. And God said, Moses, make a brass snake. And put it on a pole. And lift it up. And tell everybody, if they'll come look at this brass snake on a pole, I will heal them. I want you to use your sanctified imagination for a moment and let me make up a story for you. This daddy comes into the tent and grabs his wife and says, one of them snakes bit me. She says, I think I got something that will help you. Come over here. And his son comes running in the tent and says, Daddy, Daddy, Moses said all you gotta do is run out and look at that snake on the pole and you'll be healed. Mama's got this, leave me alone. Mama put something on that. Okay, let me try some of this. Daddy, please, Moses said you just gotta go out and look at this snake on the pole and you'll be healed, Daddy. Get a line of here, Mama knows what she's doing. I'm gonna do it this way. Daddy, please! Daddy! Daddy? Daddy? That's the illustration that Jesus gave me of convenience. As Moses lifted up the circle on a pole, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Do you hear the correlation? There was a judgment for their sin. And God took the very thing that was the judgment, the snake, and He put it on the pole. And the curse was on the pole. And the Bible tells us that Jesus became a curse for us. When He hung on the cross and He cried out, My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken Me? God was punishing Jesus for your sins, for my sins. Was that fair? No. But it's the only way that God could justify hell was over sin was to take the punishment instead. Let's read where Jesus tells Nicodemus this in verse 14 of John 3. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, Even so, it was to some man he lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." What are we doing? We're getting the context for John 3.16. That's what we're doing. And if you've got a red letter or Bible, you notice that John 3.16 is in red. Jesus said this about himself. As Moses lifted up the circumcised wilderness, And in my little story that I told you, the father would not listen to his son's advice to go and look at the serpent on the pole. But he thought, my wife will take care of me. I've got another way. I'll do it my way. There are so many people who have slipped out of this life and gone into hell because they were going to do it their way. He stood at God's foot. God has made a provision to save every person on this planet, but He will let you go to hell if you want to. He made a provision for every user like to be saved from that snake bite. To look and believe what God said. To believe in the salvation that He provided by putting that brass snake on a pole. Every time you see an ambulance go by, you see a symbol of a brass snake on a pole. It's healing. And the salvation that we need is in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said He would be lifted up. And that's an euphemism for being crucified. At one point he told his disciples that he was going to die and they said, we heard that the Christ was going to live forever. How are you going to die on the cross? What do you mean? They never did get it until after the resurrection. And you can get the answer all the way back in Genesis. When God told Adam and Eve, If you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will surely die. The wages of sin has not changed. The punishment for sin is separated from God for all eternity. Death is the payment for sin. And the Bible tells us in the book of Corinthians, he who knew no sin, became sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Whenever a person puts their true faith in what Jesus did for them on the cross, God heals them from the snake bite. He takes the penalty of sin away. The moment you truly believe, you see, the difference is believing and make-believing. Make-believing saves nobody. Make believing as going to church and saying you're a Christian. Make believing as saying, oh, I believe the Bible, and living like the devil. Make believing will not save you, but truly believe in what God has done for you in the person of Jesus Christ on the cross, save you for all eternity. That's what the life of an angel says for God. It's a love of the world. That He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish. And that means to be separated from God for eternity in the lake of fire. I've had people ask me, say, do you believe there's a little lake of fire? And I say, well, it don't sound fun, whatever it is. I don't want to be a part of it. I want to be in the presence of God in His hands to enjoy His glory by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I hope everybody here is trusted in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you have, according to the Word of God, you have everlasting life. If you haven't, you should be afraid. You should be very afraid. The Bible says, boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. My daddy used to say, you put your shoes on in the morning, but you never know who's going to take them off. Nobody's promised another day. Today is the day of salvation. I'm going to close in prayer and turn it back over to Bruce for the communion service. And if you have questions about whether or not you're really saved, I'd be glad to talk to you. I can show you from the Bible how to get ahead in the mass if you want to come along. Let's close in prayer.