Please turn in your Bibles to John chapter 3, verse number 1. John chapter 3, verse 1. I do apologize for my rough voice. I hope you can hear clearly. 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 doest, except 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. For that which is born, explaining that water birth now, that which is born of the flesh is but flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. It was with these dynamic words that the most exciting interview between God and man that ever occurred took place one night, perhaps on the top of a little village somewhere, perhaps on the top of a building as the wind was blowing and the cool night air and the breeze was used of the Spirit of God to teach a spiritual lesson to those who would listen. If you will go into central Florida, you will see today the place where Ponce de Leon thought that he had discovered the fountain of youth. And 78 stones on either side come to it from all four directions. And there in the middle is the water that was supposed to give men everlasting life. A cross has been built around it, for wise men have found in impending ages that there is in reality a way that men do have the fountain of life. There is a water that men can drink, but that water is found in the cross, at the center of the cross, in the center of the will of God, from drinking from the well that never runs dry in the water of life that is Jesus Christ. He said to the woman at the well, Drink of the water that is in this well, and you shall thirst, but drink of the water that I am, and you will never again be thirsty. When men receive Christ in their hearts by faith, the dead tissues of the morality of the soul take on a new dimension of life and living, and man springs to eternal life. The Bible tells us that the wages, the fruition of our sin, is that we are in a state of inept death, and that death can produce no more life. There can be no life where there is death, no more than dead pulpits can grow beautiful lilies. But Jesus Christ said, A man need not continue in that condition, that he can live, life can exist from death, there can be light where there was darkness, and that a man can start all over again. That's what the word gospel is all about. The good news, the literal translation of the gospel is, good news, that death can produce life, that bankrupt men may be spiritually rich, that paupers may be children of the king, that a man who is dead may live again, that the sins of the past may be blotted out, and that one who is guilty from God, separated from God, can so experience God in his life as to have an entire regeneration of human nature, and he can start all over again, the past eradicated, the future enacted, and one can stand before God as though he had never lived before, as though he had never sinned before, as though he had never failed before. He can literally be born all over again. The man with whom Jesus Christ was conversing that night was named Nicodemus. And Nicodemus was a Pharisee, and if I called you a Pharisee, that would be an insult. But in Jesus' day, it was a compliment. He was not only a Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin, a ruler of the Jews, a part of the governing officiating board of the synagogue, but he was a master teacher of other men. Now a Pharisee was one who taught teachers how to teach. A Pharisee was a teacher of the law to teachers. This man who was a master in Israel was the one who taught teachers how to teach teachers how to teach. Gamaliel, Nicodemus were two of the three great teachers of all Judaism. This man was not a nobody, he was a somebody. If you were to take all of the religious personalities in the world today, take the Pope in Rome, take Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, take a mighty high archbishop over a great diocese of churches, take Billy Graham, all of the world's great religious personalities, rolled into one little bundle, you would have a man something like Nicodemus. And when he came to Jesus Christ at night, he was very, very serious. People have questioned as to why he came to Nicodemus at night, to Christ at night. There are those who say he was embarrassed. Some say he did not want to identify with Christ. Some have given conjecture that it was because of the desire for a prolonged conversation in the cool of the evening against the background of the dark desert in the heat of the day that he would come to Christ. But I believe that Nicodemus came to Christ at night because he was in a hurry and he couldn't wait until the next day. I believe that his actions said that he was very, very interested in the kingdom of God. He wanted the answer to some spiritual questions. He was hungry because though he was a whited sepulcher on the outside with all of his talents and possession and position, he was a dead man on the inside, lost, bankrupt, empty, hungry. And he came to Jesus and said, Good Master, we know that thou art a teacher come from God. And therein made his first mistake. Jesus Christ was not a teacher come from God. He was God come to teach. He did not represent God. He was not a spokesman for God. He was not an ambassador for God. He was God, incarnate in human flesh. But Nicodemus was interviewing deity when he had a face -to -face confrontation with Jesus Christ. Now he said, Lord Jesus, you are a great man. That is obviated by the fact that you are doing divine spiritual miracles. And surely, having heard about the kind of man I am, you and I can sit down aloof from the crowd and have a wonderful discussion of theological truths. Well, I can imagine that having made the introduction, Nicodemus must have sat back and expected Jesus Christ to say, Well, thank you, Nicodemus. I've heard a lot about you too. I've heard grand things about your teaching. The insights you have registered, the sayings that you have stated are of the greatest profound impact on all of Judaism. And you and I can certainly communicate intellectually what is it you'd like to discuss, Brother Nicodemus. He didn't do that, though. Jesus Christ was not concerned with the exterior religiosity of this epitome of piosity. There was something on the inside that Christ saw that he wanted to get into. And he didn't even repay the compliment. He didn't ask him the time of day. He didn't say, How do you do? Thank you. God bless you. He said, Nicodemus, you must be born again. That was the immediate reaction to the introduction to Nicodemus. Nicodemus, he said, Nicodemus, I see something in you the world does not see behind your pious theological exterior. There's something wrong at the crux of your human nature. You need to be born again. Why, he couldn't have been more surprised if he'd have told him he'd have found a suit that had fitted Robert Hall. Why, he said, Jesus, what are you talking about? Here I am. Hope nobody works at Robert Hall. Here I am. I'm a grown man. Five, six feet tall, 70 years of age. I am mature. I have children. And you are telling me that I have to experience something called being born again to see the kingdom of God? He said, You want me to shrink down and become a baby and into the body of my mother, enter her womb again, be born? Jesus, what are you talking about? And Jesus said, What I expect he would say to a lot of high -sounding theologians today, Art thou a master in Israel and knowest not these things? I hear most theologians today with all of their high -sounding doctrine who know everything about life but the author of life, who have no Christology about their preaching, who speak of the Christian way, the Christian ethic, the Christian influence, but never the Christ. And I want to say to them, Knowest thou not the things of God? It would be very difficult in the average church to wade through what the preacher was saying and come out with a little tidbit that told a man how to be saved, how to be born again in the kingdom of God. Nicodemus knew everything but the right thing. You mean you don't know, Nicodemus, about the new birth? Poor Nicodemus. Oh, he said, must I enter my mother's womb and again be born? Now listen, there's no discussion of baptism here. I mean, that's not up for grabs. It isn't under consideration. They're talking about a physical birth. Nicodemus is confused. He's talking about a physical birth. Jesus is talking about a spiritual birth. The doctors tell us that a child encompassed in his mother's womb is encompassed in water. Physical human births are called water births and have been by doctors through the centuries. So Jesus said, Nicodemus, yes, you do need to be born physically. That's what they're discussing, the physical versus the spiritual. Yes, you must have a womb birth, a physical birth. You must be born of the water, the water birth. Yes, but you must also be born of the spirit. For you see, Nicodemus, you are both body and spirit. We say that a man has a spirit. We say that a man has a soul. But in reality, we are not exactly correct in saying. We should not say a man has a soul. We should say a man is a soul that has a body. The soul, the man that lives in the body, that's what's wrong. That's the crux of the difficulty in human nature. That is what must be transformed, Nicodemus. You see, it doesn't do you any good to reform the exterior. There are problems in the heart that cause the exterior to sin. Nicodemus, I want the nature, the heart, the core, the crux, the ego, the id, the personality, the man that lives in the body. That's what must be born again. Your nature must be transformed. Jesus said it so clearly. It should settle the theological controversy between every religion in the world that discusses whether men are saved by salvation or by grace, whether one is baptized or sanforized or pasteurized or joins the church or has an emotional jag or however you're supposed to get to heaven. Jesus said it authoritatively and I think rather conclusively when he said, ye must be born again. That's all that is to it. You must be born again. For you see, this body is going to die, but that spirit will die, so to speak. It will spend eternity in hell unless it has been saved. But Nicodemus, having been born once, you see, you're going to die twice. Your body will go to the rest of the earth and your soul will go to hell. But Nicodemus, if you are born once, you'll die twice. But if you've been born twice, you only have to die once. If you're born again, the body may die, but the soul will live with Jesus forever. Talking about two births, talking about two natures, the transformation of the heart, the soul, the nature that possesses and is tabernacled in a body of clay. And he said, you must be born again. Now that answer was very personal. He didn't say, I'm talking about your mother or your granddad. He said, I'm talking about you, Nicodemus. You personally must be born again. Then it is imperative. He didn't say you may. People say to me last week in the crusade, well, preacher, we're Episcopalians or Lutherans or this or that. Our church doesn't believe it like that. We don't preach it like that. Well, it really doesn't matter what you believe or what you preach or what I have to say. All that matters is what Jesus Christ said. And he said, you've got to do this. It is in the divine imperative. You must be born again. Then it was very specific. It says, you must be. You see, you are not already. You must become something. This word be is not the best translation. We do not have a good grammatical vehicle to convey into English what it is trying to state. It is a clear demarcation from what has been and what must be. You must become born again. You must experience this thing. It is yet for you to have. The fact that you are alive and live and walk and talk and go to church and breathe and are American and eat does not mean that you are a child of God. You must be something later. You must have this experience. Now it is a reality. A girl said to me on the campus of Miami University some years ago, Miami, Oklahoma, Northeastern Junior College, said, are you telling me that I'm not a Christian? I said, I don't know. She said, I was born in a Christian home. I go to a Christian church. I was born, raised in a Christian country. That makes me a Christian. I don't need to be saved. I said, what's your major? She said, philosophy. I said, let's talk logic. If being born in a Christian home made you a Christian, then by the exact same logic, being born in a bread pan would make you a biscuit, or being born in a garage would make you a Ford, or worse than that, a Volkswagen. Oh, I hope we haven't got any Volkswagen dealers. Well, I'm getting all kinds of hot water today. No, listen. It's an experience. It's something you've got to have. It is definite. You must be born again. A life -transforming experience. Let me ask you a question. Have you been born again? Born again people don't have much trouble getting out to prayer meeting on Wednesday night if they really want to. I know if you're old or sick or something, that's different. But the natural man receiveth not the things of God, while the new nature seeketh after higher ground. It has been my experience that when one is truly converted, you don't have to talk them in to joining the church and being baptized and witnessing and giving to the Lord and sharing their faith. You'd have to talk them out of it. You can't keep them from doing it. The explosive power of that new affection just wants to tell everybody that something has happened to me. You came down an aisle. The preacher preached. The church clerk asked you some questions. The pastor shook your hand. How have you come? Fine, thank you. How are you? Have a seat. You come on the profession. Would you like to join our church? Be baptized? Sign here. When did you repent? When did you begin to love what you'd hated? When did you begin to hate what you'd love? I don't go to church because it's, I can't help but go to church. My nature has been transformed. I love spiritual things. I love the family of God. Nobody has to beat me over the head to keep me out of the joints and the nightclubs. I've lost my taste for that. I've been born all over again. Now this new birth is not reformation. It isn't turning over a leaf and trying to do better. Just suppose you could so reform as to never again commit another sin. Thank God that's winnable. But the sin you committed five minutes ago will send you to hell. You see, reformation takes care of the future. But only regeneration takes care of the past as well. No past. An entire new experience. A whole new future. Life beginning again when you're born all over again. It's not just reforming. Here's a man who steals apples off of the train. They send him to college. They give him a degree. They educate him. He becomes cultured, very personable. He develops a $64 vocabulary. They put Hickey Freeman's suits on his back and Numbush shoes on his feet. Now they turn him loose on society. Oh, wonderful. He does not steal apples off the train anymore. Good. Now he steals the whole cotton -picking train. What's happened? He has become an educated crook. His mind has changed, but he has the same old rotten heart. Now he just knows new ways, more intellectual ways to do worse things. He is still unregenerate. I don't believe in mixing church and state, and I don't think we ever ought to take taxes to do anything, but I wonder what would happen if our government would spend one percent on evangelism, the converting of the heart of the nature of men that it spends on changing the exterior of our society. Oh, what a world we would have. But that's not their job, it is our job. And we can do an infinitely better job of it than we are doing. It is not reformation, it is not just being emotional, although I think that your emotion as well as your mind, as well as your body, as well as your intellect, must all be brought into subjection to the Lordship of Christ. You do not sit up on the operating table and say, now doc, you can't take that incision here. You can't put the two stitches here. You do not dictate. You give yourself in total submission to him. And in the very same way, you must totally submit yourself to the will of God. We don't come on any terms and say if, and, or but. Kids say to me sometimes, do I have to give up dancing to be saved? Yes, since you put it like that, you do, because you raised the question. Because you're not willing to. Do I have to give up eating asparagus to be saved? Yes, you do. Now that you put it like that, do I have to give up wearing green socks to be saved? Well, if that is a condition, then yes, you do. Because it means total, absolute submission to the will of God with no strings attached. And he, the divine physician, comes in on the inside and does the work, but only to the repentant, submissive heart. Not just being baptized. You can live in the baptistry until you grow webbed feet and scales and swim like a fish and float like a duck and split hell wide open. But it's not just joining the church. You can come down the aisle and join the church. You can join every organization in town. But the pencil never touches your heart. We don't need new hands to quit stealing. We need new hearts that we don't want to steal. We do not need new eyes that will not lust. We need new hearts. These are but the physical extremities of the body that the spirit within us dictates to use to do the will of God or the will of self. It is not my purpose to convert all the church members, although a few need it. That's between God and them. I purposely want to prod your consciences today and ask the spirit of God to dig out some things for some people who may be hiding behind their own religiosity and ask you one simple question. Have you or have you not genuinely had a new birth, repentant, born -again experience? Have you been born again? And if you have not and know you have not, there's room at the cross for you. The life of the flesh is in the blood. The life for this flesh as well is in the power of the blood of Christ. God is in the business of overhauling human nature, of regenerating human personality. He doesn't come in and do a patch -up job. He doesn't try to patch up the old nature. Someone prayed when an old boy was praying, fill me with the Holy Spirit. Lord, don't fill him anymore. He leaks. Well, the Lord knows we leak. He knows this old patched, rotten, leaky human nature. You can't overhaul it. What the Spirit of God does is to impart within your personality an entire new nature. Now you have His nature in you. Yes, you'll have some trouble with the old nature that is still there and will not be eradicated until your body is glorified at the coming of Christ. Else you'd be perfect when you were saved. But thank God there is a new nature that is susceptible to spiritual things, that can enjoy spiritual growth, that can grow and become a victorious Christian. But you must open the door of your heart. There are two ways that you do it. I can tell you no better than this. My wife and I spent a week in England, London. Years ago, we saw the famous British Museum. We saw underscored the place in the original transcript, manuscript of Handel's Messiah, where the king stood. He was so enraptured and everyone stood. Until this day, as on Easter here in our church, the people stand when they hear the Messiah sung. But we saw the original painting of the game of life. The game of life is a picture of a chess game between the devil and a nine -year -old boy. The story, the inscription at the bottom of it says, although the devil is gleeful, the boy sits there dejected, he's lost the game of life. The idea that a lad has all the cards stacked against him, he's lost the game of life before he begins, that one day, a champion Christian chess player came on the scene, and he began to look at the arrangement of the board, and he noticed that the board men were erroneously arranged. There was a mistake. The little lad had not lost the game of life. He brought over a chess table, called the author, arranged the chess men as they were on the board, on the picture, and proved that the boy had two more moves, and he could have won the game of life. Preacher, what are you trying to say? Just this. It is no accident that of all the places in the world you could have been, you are here today. Out of all the sermons I could have preached, I have been led of God to give you this way. God has brought you in time, in place, in destiny, to this hour, to this day, to this moment, to this invitation. He has brought friend, he has brought visitor, he has brought member, he has brought deacon, he has brought teacher, he has brought people in the streets, the wealthy, the poor, all of us on common ground at the foot of the cross. From all races and kinds and colors and creeds, we are here today, but there is one centralizing common denominator of human nature that must be dealt with by God's power. He has told me to tell you, you must be born again. And you can never say, I didn't know, you cannot stand before God. Say, I had no excuse. You look to the right, there are your sins, to the left, your iniquities, to the rear, there are yesterday's mistakes, there are tomorrow's failures. What can you do? Man, it's easy. Look up. Look up to Christ by two moves, the move of repentance of sin and faith in Christ. You can win the game of life. You can walk out of here, a child of God, on the road to heaven, ready to die, yes, but infinitely more important, perhaps, for you now, ready to live. You must give yourself in totality to the Lordship of Christ in faith, and you can be born again. Let us bow our heads and pray. Our Father, we thank Thee for the wonderful Word of God, our precious Lord, who in Christ has said, you may be born again. Dear Father, we pray that hope for the hopeless, life for those in darkness, a new chance for those who have failed, may be experienced and understood and comprehended by many, many here today who need our Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Heads are bowed, eyes are closed. No one is looking around. Let me ask you an honest, simple question.