The Gospel: Regeneration

Disgusting. First one is in Matthew chapter 19 and verse 28. 19 and 28.

I'm going to read verse 27 for connection as well. Then answered Peter and said unto him, behold we have forsaken all and followed thee. What shall we have therefore? And Jesus said unto them, verily, verily, I say unto you that ye which have followed me, now in this present day, that ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

And everyone that hath forsaken houses and brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my name's sake shall receive a hundredfold and shall inherit everlasting life. But many that are first shall be last and the last shall be first. Titus chapter 3. Titus chapter 3 and verse 5. Well we'll read from verse 4. But after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior.

While we're here let us look at 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 9. No, it's chapter 2 verse 9. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, and holy and holy nation, a peculiar people, that you should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you, now listen now, this is the part I want you to grasp, who hath called you out of darkness, that's one place, into His marvelous life, another place. Colossians chapter 1 and verse 13. Now you have the same idea here.

Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, that's one place, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son, that's another place. So it's a transfer from one condition or place to another. Now let us read in John's gospel chapter 3. Chapter 3 and reading verse 3. Jesus answered and said unto him, that is to Nicodemus, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except the man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Nicodemus said unto him, how can a man be born when he's old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except the man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. And so Nicodemus now has an answer, as a problem, and in verse 9 he says, how can these things be? And Jesus answered and said unto him, art thou a master of Israel, knowest not these things? And so on. Now go over to chapter 5 and verse 24.

Chapter 5 and verse 24. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. Again, we're passing from one condition, from death unto life.

And now a last reading in 1st Peter chapter 1. 1st Peter chapter 1 and verse 23. Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is the flower of the grass.

The grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth away. But the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

Now today we're going to talk about regeneration. That's this here term here. And that term there, it's explained in two different ways in our Bible.

It's only used twice. Matthew 19 and 28 and in Titus chapter 3 and verse 5. But it means basically the same thing as to be born again. And so born again is used in John's gospel chapter 3 and as we read it in 1st Peter chapter 1 where the idea is explained by Peter.

So to be born again or regeneration, you can look at that word regeneration as the battery in your car. You get up in the morning and the battery is dead. Okay, it got no life.

You can turn the key and it's just click. There's nothing. It's dead.

So you have a generator in your car that's supposed to keep the battery alive. You got to have it recharged by a generator. That'll put new life in it.

Well, that's like the sinner. He's dead. Everybody in Adam is dead in sin.

He has no link with God whatsoever. Isaiah said, your sins and your iniquities have separated between you and your God. Sin has come to separate man from God.

Ephesians 4 and 9 says, we've been alienated from the life of God. We started out in Adam. We all had life in Adam.

But when Adam sinned, he died spiritually. And that separated him from God and he ran into the bush to hide from God. And he'd have been there yet today if God hadn't went looking for him and calling him.

So sin has separated us from God and we are spiritually dead. Now, do you know the three ways in which a person can be dead? There's physical death. That is, I die.

Death just means separation. That's the proper definition of death. Separation.

If I die physically, my body's here on the floor, but my spirit's gone. There's a division. To be dead spiritually means that my sin separates me from God.

Physical death, body and spirit separated. Spiritual death, God and the sinner separated. The second death is at the great white throne when God judges man and he dies in his sins.

He's cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death. And that death is irrevocable. It cannot be altered.

That's final. It's the second and last death. And the person is separated from God forever.

Now, that's what sin has done to all of us. We're all dead in sins. Therefore, being dead over and over again.

Those terms were used in the New Testament by the Apostle Paul. Now, the idea of regeneration is to find out how this sinner in Adam can find life. How can he get life? He can't get it himself.

No other person can give it to him except God. And that's what God's going to do now for the sinner. He's going to, I was going to say regenerate, but he's going to give him a new birth, if he wants it.

And he's going to give him the opportunity to gain life, if he wants it. Now, over and over again in the Bible, we talk about everlasting life and so on. That's what this is talking about.

The sinner getting life, which previously he did not have. Now, regeneration means to take from one place and put and reinstate in another. Colossians 1 said, out of the power of darkness, that's where Satan controls, and translate them into the kingdom of the son of his love.

That's into the kingdom of God. So it's a transfer from one place to the other. Peter talked about, now I forget it.

Oh, but I'm right here close, so I don't have far to go. Don't get old because you're still starting to forget. So keep your mind, your memory young.

Oh yeah. And to show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness, in your sins, into his glorious light, which is in Christ. So you see it's from one place to another.

That's what God wants to do. And in Matthew chapter 19 and verse 28, remember the Lord Jesus said, those of you who have followed me now, in this generation, presently, in the regeneration, when the Lord Jesus comes back and sets up his kingdom, then he says, you will sit then upon 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. So it's a change.

You follow me now? Good, that's now. But later on, when I sit upon the throne of my glory, then you will be in a different place than you are now. Because right now you're being rejected than those of you who deny or reject or forsake father, mother, brother, sister, you know, so on.

Now you will receive a hundredfold in that next day when the Lord Jesus comes to sit upon the throne of his glory. So that's regeneration. Keep that in your mind.

That's just what it means. God's going to take you from one place and put you into another. He's going to find a way to get you out of Adam and put you into Christ.

That's regeneration. Here you're dead in trespasses and sins, Ephesians 2 and verse 1. Here, in Christ, you're alive. You have eternal life.

If any man be in Christ, that's where he's safe. That's where he has his eternal life. Now the idea of being born again, that means God is going to impart to you a new life.

Not just take you from one state of death in Adam and put you into Christ where you are alive, but he's going to legitimately make you by divine, by a divine birth, a legitimate son of his. He's going to give you a new life. Right now in Adam, John, the first epistle, John will say you're a child of the devil.

Some people don't like that. And I know, nobody wants to be called a child of the devil. But yet that's what God says.

John says that. The Lord Jesus said, you're of your father the devil and the works of your father you will do. He was a liar from the beginning and a murderer and he bowed not in the truth for there's no truth in him.

And so the Lord Jesus said it and John said it in the epistle to his letter he wrote when he said you're of Cain, that wicked one. He was of that wicked one and he also called him a child of the devil. Now you don't like that at all to say that to people.

But yet the gospel wasn't made to make people happy. That's one of the things the Lord Jesus warned us about when he went sowing the seed. He says they receive it joyfully, but they never lasted.

They never lasted. It wasn't long until they were gone. As Mr. Leckie, he's quite a famous teacher from the old country, he's gone now to be with the Lord.

But he said nobody can receive the gospel joyfully if it's told to them properly. Nobody wants to be called a sinner. Nobody wants to think they're a child of the devil.

Nobody wants to think they're bad. Nobody wants to think there's no good in them. And nobody wants to think they have to be born again.

What's wrong with me that I have to be born again? In Galatians chapter 5 and I think it is verse 11, Paul said, if I preach circumcision, why then am I suffering persecution? Why is the scandal of the cross not ceased? Or the word there is offense, but the proper word is scandal. So what is there about the cross, the preaching of the cross, that's a scandal? It's terrible. Well, it's terrible to those people he was preaching to, those Jews, but to a Christian, a converted person, it's wonderful.

But why would it be to your friend if you tell him he's got to be born again, and he asks you why, and then you properly told him why. He just very much just might be like these Jews and say, that's a scandal. What's a scandal? Well, you're going around saying something bad about people.

It's a scandal. Or you've done something bad in the community, and there's a scandal now in the community about you or whatever. How could the preaching of the cross be a scandal? Because the preaching of the cross says, you're going to die.

Well, why do I have to die? Well, because of what you are now. You're a rebel, you're a slave, you're a criminal, you're dead and Adam. There's nothing good about you.

We've been through all this, and you've got to bring the sinner to that place where he sees he stands before God condemned. No hope. Well, the scandal is, the religious person says, but I'm not that bad.

Why should God have to destroy me? Why should I have to die? Can't there be some, something in me that God can have favor upon and maybe build upon that? You know, like you take your house and you renovate it, you change it over, but you can't renovate a sinner. God says, you've got to die. And so a religious person will look at that, especially those Jews in Paul's day when God gave them the Ten Commandments and they're trying their best and they're saying, well, God gave us the Ten Commandments and so why cannot we base our efforts to find favor with God on the commandments that he gave us? Well, Paul is now teaching that old covenant.

We're going to talk about that one day, one night, the new covenant. This old covenant is done in God. And that law cannot do you any good whatsoever.

In fact, it is the means where God proves you to be guilty. And so, just suppose you took it to an extreme and you took two people. Let's say you take a lady, very fine lady, nice lady, respectable lady in the community.

Everything about the lady is nice. Everybody speaks highly about her. But she's not born again.

She's not saved. Everything about her is naturally good. And then there's this other lady and she's bad.

She's a harlot. She don't bath. She never combs her hair.

Just depicts somebody just right down at the lowest you can go. And then you look at a guy, he's educated. He's a professor.

He's got about as much knowledge in his head as you can get. And he's a good guy. He's got a nice suit on.

Lives in a beautiful home. Hair cut up nice. Everything about him is right up to date.

He's a real nice guy. But he's not born again. And then here's another fellow.

And he's just a tramp. A thief. A liar.

Murderer. I mean everything bad you can think about him. Put the one guy as high as you can.

Put the other guy as low as you can. Now, you tell the nice refined lady and this here gentleman, now look, you both have to be saved and get to heaven on the same grounds as those other two. There's no difference between you in God's eyes.

Lady, as nice as you are, in God's eyes, you're no better than that tramp. And the same over here, mister. You're no better than that tramp.

Now, that's going to create a scandal in those people's eyes. A big one. The poor guy down there, he's more likely to accept it because he has an idea where he is.

But the other two, they have themselves a way up on a pedestal. Far superior. And you tell them they've got to come down and be born again and be saved like this tramp? Yeah.

Very same way. It's not going to go over well. It won't go over well.

The Apostle Paul found it out and the Apostle Paul had to die for it. The Jews treated him with absolute disdain and hate. They had one desire for that man, that little Jew.

They were going to kill him. And they did get him in the end on the grounds of blasphemy. Now, you and I now, God says you must be born again.

That's a problem for all people. Many, many religious people, even Christians, if you ask them to explain new birth, they can't do it. They can't do it.

I had a young people one time meeting and there was another preacher there, a young preacher. And we were talking and we got discussing things and I asked, what does regeneration mean, the new birth? Well you know, he couldn't explain it. He didn't know.

Oh, he could say it means to be saved. But that's not the theory of the thing, to be saved. I ask you young men, could you all give a good explanation as to how a person is born again? Take it in the words that the Lord Jesus is speaking of and in the words of Peter back in chapter 1 and verse 23.

Born again. Now what does that mean in English? Born again means to be born again. Just like it says.

Born from above. You ought to be taken from one place and put into another. Now how can you be born again? Well Nicodemus had a hard time.

He didn't know. And the Lord Jesus said, well man, you're the teacher in Israel, you should know. You should be acquainted with the Old Testament like Ezekiel 36, where it is explained there.

But Nicodemus did not know. He said, how can this be? How can a man that is old be born again the second time in his mother's womb? And Jesus said, no, no, no, no, no. Not a physical birth.

A spiritual birth. You must have a spiritual birth. That which is born of the flesh, when you're born as a baby, like the little babies there, you're born that way, that's one way to be born.

But there is another way to be born and it's a spiritual birth. Not physical. So we're talking about the spiritual birth.

Just like the other night we talked about man is redeemed, his spirit is redeemed, but his body is only bought. Two different things. So that which is born of the flesh is flesh, said Jesus, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.

Marvel not that it is said unto thee, you must be born again. Now I want to ask you, are you born again? Are you born again? If you're not born again, you can't go to heaven. You can't go.

To Nicodemus, that was awful. And for many other people, I remember my wife. She's now my wife.

She wasn't then. She was my fiancée. And many a hot battle raged around this one.

She lived better than me. She was nicer than me. She was more upright than me.

In every way, she was better than me. And she knew it. And so did I. But I could say to her, are you born again? And she's stuck.

She's finished. She'd go to the pastor at the church. And the pastor at the church couldn't tell her.

He himself wasn't born again. You see, some of these terms that are so familiar, at one point in my life as a young missionary, I didn't know either. And I had to bluff my way around it.

And if the fellas had known, look at this guy really doesn't know himself, they could have really put my shoulders to the wall and give me a real difficult time. Until I got thinking, what does it mean to be born again? And Peter, he said in his first epistle, he said, now listen. Well, I'm going to read it.

So make sure I say it right. First Peter chapter 1 verse 23. Seeing then that you have purified your souls, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of the incorruptible seed of the Word of God, which liveth and bideth forever.

Okay, now Peter is going to look at the new birth, first looking at it from its natural point of view, birth, and then at the spiritual side. And he says, now listen. Being born again, not of corruptible seed.

Now those little babies you have, they were born. They were born of corruptible seed. The seed of the man and the seed of the woman came in contact.

Zygotes formed. Now that's where the little child now commences. There's conception.

And that little child is going to be born. Okay, how did it happen? Two seeds came together. And when they touched, conception took place.

And it's just a matter of nine months, and the little child will be born. It took these two things to come together. So Peter says now, being born again, not of corruptible seed, because that corruptible seed, that first that produces these little babies in us, they're going to die.

It's not good enough. So he says here, not of corruptible seed, but of the incorruptible seed by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. Now the spiritual birth takes place basically on the same principles as the natural.

What did Jesus say in John chapter 5 and verse 24? He said, truly, truly, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, that's one thing, the word of God, remember, born of the seed of incorruptible, but by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. The word of God is living and powerful, just like the seed of the man carries the power to conceive and bear, bring forth a child naturally. So the word of God is alive and is powerful.

So Jesus said, truly, truly, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, there's the one. That's the power, lies in the word. He that heareth my word, and then the other one is, and believeth on him that sent me.

Now when faith and the word of God come together, what happens? When a man's faith is put in the word of God, what happens? Who said that? Yeah, life. So you see, what he's telling us here is, truly, truly, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed, has regeneration, passed from here into here where there's life. But it's on the basis that the Lord Jesus died for our sins.

You can't get from here to here without dying with Christ, buried with Christ, and risen with Christ. This is how you get there. But we've been through that other nights, and we'll look at that again in the nights to come.

But, regeneration is transferring a sinner from one place into another, where he gets life. How does that happen? Well, Peter told us. Being born again, not of corruptible seed, not this fleshly thing that we have.

It only produces a little child that's going to die, because it's corruptible seed. But, he says, but of incorruptible seed, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. Now, the young men, if you're going to preach the gospel, you have to understand that the word of God carries its own power.

You can't interject into the word of God any power. No matter how hard you shout. You can shout and scream, pound your feet, and hit the platform, and do all that.

That doesn't add nothing to it. That's just the personality and the way a person preaches. But it does nothing to put power in the word of God.

It's quick and powerful. It's living. That word quick means living.

Now, if someone were to ask you, and then we've got to stop. If someone were to ask you, prove to me that the word of God is alive. Prove it.

You go around preaching it, and you talk about it, and you read it all the time, but prove to me that it's alive. And every Christian can. Every Christian can.

How can you, you may not prove it to the other guy, but for yourself, because we're living in a world that is totally opposed to this book. They ridicule it. They laugh at it.

They despise it. They don't want to hear it. And we, the Christian, have so much confidence in it.

How do we know it's alive? It's powerful. How do you know that? I want to tell you it's going to be as simple as falling off a log. But right now, you might be thinking, how do I know it's alive with power? Well, I'll tell you about my position.

I was a wee laddie, about 11, 12 years old. And I was scared stiff. Those preachers preached hell, and those preachers preached about the Lord coming and our danger.

If the Lord come, what would happen? And I would tremble, and I would tremble, and I would try to get saved as hard as I could try, and I just couldn't get it. One night, lying in my bed, I told God, if I have to get saved by believing, I got no more faith left. I'm finished.

I have to go to hell. And then, this is what happened. The Word of God flashed into my mind, a verse, that if thou shalt confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, and you'll believe in your heart that He died for you and that God raised Him from the dead, you'll be saved.

And all at once, bang, come alive. I realized, that's it. I'm saved.

Who said so? God said so. But how come believing that Word did that to me? Give me this new birth, this new life. You see, that's what the new birth is.

Truly, truly, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, will you listen to the Word of God. It's there, by itself. But as soon as you put faith in it, you'll get salvation, because God promises it to you.

He that believeth on the Son, what? Has everlasting life, see? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you're saved. So that's the idea behind the new birth. It's when faith and the Word of God come to gether, being born again, not of corruptible seed.

That's no good to have a new birth like the one we got. We'd end up dying again anyway. No, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of the incorruptible seed.

The incorruptible Word of God, which lives and abides forever. So I don't know, I hope I made it clear enough for you. And you'll understand the new birth.

A person needs a new life, and God tells us how you can get it. And if you don't have it today, you come back tonight, because we're going to try another way, to make sure that you don't miss it. Okay? Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, we ask thy blessing now upon us as we part. Bless the little children downstairs. They all have been born.