My subject this morning has to do with the miraculous, the most miraculous experience in all of life. A divine operation by which the Spirit of God makes men new creatures in Christ. That to which our Lord Jesus referred as the new birth. I'm going to ask you to turn in your Bibles today to John chapter 3. John the 3rd chapter beginning in verse number 1. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whether it goeth. So it is with every one that is born of the Spirit of God. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, As thou art master of Israel, and knowest not these things. A man said to me one day, Preacher, I have gone to church all my life, and I have never heard of the mere absurdity that a man could be born again. I said, Well, you've just been going to the wrong church. A gospel without the new birth is like an airplane without air, or a swimming pool without water, or a table without food, or life without breath, or a body without blood. There is no doctrine, there is nothing preached, there are no words in or out of theology that are as important to the very life of man's existence on this earth, and his eternal relationship with God, than that he have a simple comprehension of the requirements of Jesus Christ for eternal life. And they are that a man must be born again. Once at Elion sought for the fountain of youth, he dreamed of a well from which men would drink and be eternally young. He never found that fountain, but one day Jesus Christ said to a woman who sought for physical water, I am the living water, from which when men drink they shall never again be thirsty. Jesus Christ is the perpetual fountain of youth. Today, in the fountain in Florida that Ponce de Leon discovered, and thought that he had found the fountain of youth, there are 80 stones leading up to it that form vertically and horizontally the form of a cross. And so it is that life of youth begins when men come through the way of the cross, and there find salvation in Jesus Christ. There are 11 interviews between Jesus Christ and men in the Gospel of John. Without question, this is the most important. Now the entire second chapter of the book of John is an account of the miracles of Jesus Christ, which were given to validate the authenticity of his Messiahship. When men saw them, it was intended that the divine and the miraculous would so stimulate them that they should inquire further of the way of salvation through the one doing them. And the Spirit of God, I think here, works a beautiful classic in the way that men respond to the operation of God. Literally, the third chapter begins with and, or now, suggesting a relationship to the second chapter. Now when Nicodemus, a man of the Pharisees, had seen what was done, he came to the Lord Jesus Christ and said unto him, Master, we know that thou art a teacher come from God. And herein he made a severe mistake. But Jesus Christ was no teacher come from God. He was God come to teach. He did not speak for God. He was no ambassador from God. He was no spokesman from God. He was God incarnate in human flesh. Jesus was being interviewed by a man. And that man was interviewing deity in the person of Jesus Christ. Now much speculation has occurred as to the purpose of the Spirit of God's recording that this grand interview between God and man to ultimately crystallize the only way of salvation, why it occurred in the midst of the night. Now I've read all of the scholars, well not all, but certainly some of them, at least 20 this week. And if you'll allow the 21st to tell you what he thinks, I'll tell you why Nicodemus really came at night. There are those who came to think that he came to Jesus at night because he was embarrassed. Now nobody knows what the most common conjecture seems to be that he did not want to be seen, a man of his stature, talking to the lowly Nazarene. I cannot believe that because he had great admiration for Jesus Christ. For one Pharisee to call another man a rabbi, a teacher, was to pay him the highest compliment that could be paid. For me to call you a Pharisee would be an insult today. But in the days of our Lord Jesus Christ, to be a Pharisee was to ascribe to the highest order of religiosity in or outside of all of the biblical accounts of religion. A Pharisee was a man who taught teachers how to teach. Now Nicodemus was a master in Israel and a leader among the Jews, a governing body, a governing member of the officiating body of the Sanhedrin. In other words, Nicodemus was not a nobody, he was a somebody. You take Billy Graham and the Pope in Rome and Harry Emerson Fosbick and Bishop Fulton J. Keene and all of it. You've got somebody like Nicodemus. I mean, he was the whole ball rolled into one. And for this man to come to Jesus Christ, when all of the world would one day know, for he did embrace the Christ and was ultimately to become a follower of the way, took no little courage. And yet with grand admiration and deep respect for the know -how of this fellow teacher, he complimented him and came at night. This man, this man who in reality had the job of teaching teachers to teach teachers how to teach. This man came to Christ at night not because he was embarrassed. He loved Christ. He had admired him and he had invoked from him a response of deep admiration and professional congeniality. Here was a man with whom he could converse on his own intellectual level. He revered Jesus Christ. No, he didn't come to Jesus because he was embarrassed to be seen with a carpenter from Nazareth. Nor do I think that he came to Jesus Christ because the clouds and the press in the daytime made it impossible for him to have a prolonged conversation with the master. Nor do I believe, as some concur, that Jesus Christ was interviewed at night by Nicodemus because it was cool at night and it was hot in the daytime. I think he came to Jesus at night because he couldn't wait until the next day. I think he was in a hurry. And I think that when a man gets in dead earnest about his salvation, he's going to start calling the preacher up in the middle of the night and say, Let's talk turkey. I found a long time ago it doesn't do any good to try to get a man to talk about spiritual things until he is ready and the Spirit of God has him ready. But when in the circumstance of life he has had enough reverses and enough gospel and enough conviction that somehow in the providence of God he is ready in the Spirit of God direct every time the man will be saved and this man was ready to be saved he had seen enough he had heard enough he was convicted enough and he came to the master to inquire of him the deeper things of God and began by paying him a compliment good master we know this hour the teacher come from God and I can rather imagine that he expected Jesus Christ to repay that same compliment and go into a prolonged conversation and Nicodemus is not to be condemned for his attempt to discuss what at length with Jesus Christ the affairs of God where you see Judas who had had but a spurious supposed relationship though in reality none existed at all had long since been a false follower of Christ and when he would one day forsake his discipleship Nicodemus who fought long and studied the matter was going to be a real disciple in the ultimate and long -range analysis of the bank so he came to Jesus Christ with great study and great intense and great curiousness and all of it had killed him until he just couldn't wait anymore and he said Jesus I'm ready to talk well it was common in those days that men would of course change common courtesy thou art a teacher come from God and I would rather imagine that he expected the master to say something like and Nicodemus thou art a good and godly teacher as well and I so have heard of thee for indeed he was and certainly he had you'll recall that the Apostle Paul himself once saw of Parsons along with Gamaliel and this man Nicodemus were probably three of the world's great Jewish teachers of all time how marvelous it is that two of them were one day to become followers of Jesus Christ and that is as it should be ah but the master surprised him the master did not return the compliment but he said to him Nicodemus you must be born again for except the man be born again he shall not see not visibly see but he shall never comprehend as a man says I see it all now he will never see the kingdom of God and Nicodemus was so caught off guard by what Jesus Christ said that he made a foolish statement immediately he blurted out how should a man be born when he is old I can't enter my mother's body and be born again and Jesus said oh Nicodemus you a master in Israel you a grand scholar and you do not comprehend the simplicity of the gospel of which I speak to say to Nicodemus that he must be born again was to say something to him that he had never known because Nicodemus knew everything but he didn't know anything he had a lot of information but he didn't have any sense he had a lot of knowledge but he didn't have any wisdom he had a lot of religion but he didn't have any salvation he had learned and learned and studied and was among the finest and grandest of all the world's most intellectually enlightened men but he had failed to comprehend the simplicity of man's relationship to God which is an internal one a young man said to me one day sir when I was not 20 years of age in a freak junk deal in Los Angeles I made and lost within three months seven hundred thousand dollars he said I have been dishonorably discharged from the United States Navy I have been divorced twice and a flunk out of Stanford University I don't know what else there is he looked and said preacher I guess I was just born wrong I thought that he expected that he intended for me to say oh no no no that's all right I suppose that he felt something like Nicodemus must have said well when I said to him yes sir that's right you were born wrong that's exactly your trouble and that's what the Bible says is the trouble of all of us we were all born wrong but you can be born white you can be born against God can settle for the divine operation of the Spirit of God which is not listen closely God coming in and patching up the old nature, but the divine implantation of the Spirit of God into our being of an entire new nature. This is the new birth. This is what makes life begin anew. Behold, said the psalmist, I was tapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have gone every one his own way. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and since Adam sinned, there has been in the heart of every living man the propensity to sin, the tendency to go away from God, and God never tries to patch up that old. What he does is, when man acknowledges the sinful bent of his life away from God, and in sorrow for that direction, and in mercy cleaves to the Savior for a new life, God, by the purpose of the person of the Holy Spirit, in one fell swoop called salvation, comes bursting into human personality, and drops therein the seed of a new life. Man is born again. No, he's not born full -grown, any more than a child is born full -grown. Man must learn to walk. Then he must learn to run. He must grow. But just as that baby is no more a person when it is born than when it is a hundred years old, so you are no more a Christian at spiritual birth than at spiritual maturity. When one says, yes, oh, God, yes, I need thee. Oh, how I want thee. Lord Jesus, be thou born into my life. The Bible says, and we shall understand this more fully as we go through the New Testament, that there are some words in English that are not as full as the original language. And this not only suggests that a man is to be born a second time, but it means that in the totality of his being, from without the man, something that comes in from the man that was never of the man, that was absolutely eternal and infinite and above and beyond that, that literally born again is, except a man be born from above, he shall not see the kingdom of God. We have been born of beneath. Every one of us, with a sinful nature, have been born of the flesh. But he says, when one is born of the Spirit, when one is born of God, when one is born of heaven, when the divine Holy Spirit drops by faith, the seed of the new life into the heart of man, then everything begins to change. He has a new life. He doesn't need new eyes, so he doesn't look with pride and lust. He receives a new heart, so he doesn't want to. He doesn't receive a new hand, so he doesn't want to steal anymore. He receives a new heart, so that he doesn't desire to steal. God does not sever the tongue from the new converts, so he will not lie. He gives him a new heart, a new nature, so he doesn't want to use that tongue to lie, but to the glory of Almighty God. Is it any wonder that men have never, for these are indeed a thing angels desire to look into, never quite fully comprehended what it means to be born from within, to be born from above, to be born all over again. I led a dance band professionally, as you know, for years, and when I was converted, I went immediately back to my hometown, and some of my friends, when I broke up my band, and changed my vocabulary, well, I had to get a whole new vocabulary when I was saved, and I changed my actions, and I changed my associates, and I changed where I went, said, what's wrong with Bassanio? He's crazy. Something's happened to him. You see, I had the same hair, the same eyes, the same body. When I was a new man, God had changed my water. You say, preacher, when you get saved, can you still do what you want to? Sure you can, but what you want to, is all to give a difference because the Spirit of God has implanted in your being a new nature, one of God, one born from above. Ladies and gentlemen, you here today who seek and long with frustration and dissatisfaction a life that you have never found, will never find it, will never find satisfaction and solution until you understand that that aching void, that something is a hunger for God, and God comes on the inside of man by faith and gives him a new heart, a new life, a new nature when he opens his heart by faith to Jesus Christ. Born wrong? Yes, we were. We can be born again anew from above. I suppose that Nicodemus made the most common mistake of man when he looked for a solution to a spiritual problem with a physical answer. Immediately he said, you mean physically my body must re -enter my mother's body and again be born? And Jesus said, oh no, Nicodemus. You see, that that is born of the flesh is only flesh and can only produce the works and the nature of the flesh, but that that is born of the Spirit can produce the works of the Spirit and spiritual life. For we are spiritual men in growing physical, fleshly bodies. Now when he says you must be born of the water and of the Spirit, he's not talking about baptism, the verse before and this verse and the verse after. All we discuss a controversial subject, a controversial scripture in its context, is but one thing, and that is Jesus trying to convince this man that it is not a second physical birth. A child encompassed in its mother's womb, and that is the context of the discussion and nothing else, is entirely encased in water. Doctors have called the physical birth of a child the water birth for centuries. And he is saying, of course you must be born of the flesh, of the water, physically a normal birth, but you must also have more than a water, physical, fleshly human birth. You must have a divine birth, a spiritual birth, a personal almighty God in the human life. That he calls being born again. Why would he say something like that? I wonder why the Spirit of God in this classic Gospel of John, which I think is without question, John 1, 2, and 3, are without question the finest chapters in or outside of all religious writing. Why would he say that? Why describe it thusly? I think one reason is to clarify once and for all, that there is but one way of salvation. Marks the divine imperative when he says you must be born again. I think he says it to demonstrate to us the beauty of what salvation is. No more pictorial or profound message ever declared the beauty of life beginning anew in Jesus Christ. But I think there is another reason why he chose this man Nicodemus to speak to. And it is this, I believe he is saying simply that if a man of the caliber of the religion of Nicodemus, if he had to be born again, then where will you and I come in? If he has to have it, then we have to have it. I was talking to a reporter who was interviewing me about our church and the revival I was at in Mississippi a few weeks ago. And I told her of my own personal experience. And she, a college graduate, a highly educated girl, a fine young lady, could not get it through her head that relationship to God, that salvation was not the process of spiritual osmosis. She said, you mean to me that there was a time in your life up until which you were lost and immediately beyond which you were saved that it happened all at once by an act of your will and an impartation of spiritual life from the spirit of God. I said, I mean exactly that. Jesus said, you, now mark it. A girl said to me on a college campus one day, Preacher, I was born in a Christian home. I go to a Christian university. My parents are Christian people. Doesn't that make me a Christian? I said, young lady, if by your logic being born in a Christian home makes one a Christian, being born in a bread pan would make one a biscuit. Or being born in a garage would make you a Ford or a Volkswagen. No. Jesus says, you, specific, personal, exact, precise, individually, you must be born again. And it matters not whether it be the Pope in Rome or the President of the Southern Baptist Convention or the President of the United States or the worst drunk all over the street. Every man must have this experience with God without which no man shall see God. He says, you must mark it. Mark it well. And this is one of the few times our Lord Jesus uses the double barreling. Barreling. Barreling. Certainly, certainly, absolutely, absolutely, precisely, precisely, surely, surely, don't dare miss this. Not just being baptized because that water only touches the heart or joining a church because of the church membership. The card you sign, the pencil, none of them are for salvation. From the heart precedes the issues of life. And when a teenager, when a man, when a woman comes to God and says, Dear Lord, I may be as religious as Nicodemus, or I may be as rebellious as the devil, but I know that there is a nature in me that cannot and will not and does not do right, and I want a new nature, God's Holy Spirit drops it into you by faith and you are born again. Life begins to change and grow and takes on new meaning and new dimension and new direction and new fullness and new association and a new countenance and new friends and thank God even a new home in heaven. Oh, I want you to know this morning that you have been born again and if you have not, if you are not sure, it can happen as simply as this. By desire, do you want this new nature? To be sure, friends will help and assist and encourage, but only the resolution of your will to know God, only your desire, can bring the Spirit of God into your being to give you a new love for life, a new love for family and friends, a new love for God for the fruit of the Spirit is love and Christ comes in the heart. I say that the first immediate expression of the result of God in the human heart is like the old time religion says, it makes me love everybody. Some of you are sour and unhappy and loveless and filled with hate and self and emptiness and lack of joy and everything that makes life exuberant and wonderful. Oh, it comes when the Spirit of God comes in. You see, there is nothing innately in us to produce goodness. It is not normal for a man to love God or love his family or love his fellow man or love church or love doing right. That is the result of the old nature which makes us do wrong. It is when he comes in and gives a new nature that men are born again. And have you had it? You can, you may, you will today if by simple repentance from sin and faith in Jesus Christ you will open your heart to him.