Gospel

Now let's open our Bibles please to John chapter 3, a very simple portion of the Word of God, yet at the same time very profound. Amazing how that John, the writer, he's only going to use about 700 different Greek words, the vocabulary of a seven-year-old, yet he's going to take us from time and he's going to take us out into eternity. Tremendous the truth that's found in it.

John chapter 3, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and then comes John that's in the New Testament, and verse number one. And the Word of God says, 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, and that simply means let it be, let it be, or truly, truly, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said 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, a reference to the Spirit of the Word of God, and of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that's our natural birth, that's why we're here, and that which is born of the Spirit, that's the Spirit of God, is Spirit, that's salvation.

Verse 7, Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again. I'll have to make a confession at this point, I always used to skip over verse 8 whenever I read this account in the gospel, but we're going to read verse 8 and I'll make a comment on that. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whether it goeth.

So is every one that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, that word master means a teacher, the teacher in Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen. Now come down to verse number 13, And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Now verse 16, For God so loved the world. Always interesting, I love the grammar of Scripture.

Verse 15 ends with eternal life. How can a person have eternal life? Here's the answer. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Here's reason number two. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. Now that's all we're going to read.

We'll look to the Lord to bless the public reading of his word and the thoughts that we're about to take from it. I want to start by making a reference to verse number eight. As I mentioned already, I always used to skip over verse number eight because you almost would think as you're reading the passage, what does the wind have to do with being saved? He just finished talking about the Spirit of God and then he brings in this thing that we understand, the wind bloweth where it listeth, where it willeth.

You can't tell where it's coming, where it's coming from, so on and so forth. And I used to figure, I used to wonder how, what does that, how does that fit in the passage? Well you know, recently I was speaking to, where I used to live before I was married, my next-door neighbor, he's a bit of an atheist and he's always, always likes to challenge the Word of God and everything to do with God. And he wasn't listening to anything that I was saying to him from the Word of God.

And finally I said to him, Noel, then how do you explain what happened to me? If you're not going to take the Word of God for it, how do you explain what happened to me? I was a DJ in a nightclub at the age of 24, into the drinking, the drugs, and the party and everything else, and then everything changed. How do you explain that? I don't want to do that anymore. I have new desires, new appetites, new outlook on life.

I'm here talking to you, Noel, telling you that you need to be saved. Then I heard a man speak on John 3 and he mentioned about the wind. We can't see the wind.

I cannot see the Spirit of God. He's spirit. I can't see him.

I'm looking at people tonight physically and I see you. But I wish I could look at it from God's perspective and just, wouldn't it be interesting to see who the Spirit of God is speaking to? But you know what I do see in nature? I see only the effects of the wind. I see a tree that's uprooted.

I don't see what uprooted, but I only see the effects of the wind. I know the wind was there. You folks here, you have tornadoes that come through.

We don't get them up in Canada, pincer down, thank God. But you understand when it says 130 mile an hour wind, you can't see the wind, but you see the effects of the wind. Isn't it wonderful to meet people all over the world born again by the Spirit of God? You can't see the Spirit of God, but you can see the effects that the Spirit of God had on that person.

So really what it does is it brings into the passage the reality of being born again. Now that's really what I want to try to zero in on. When the Lord Jesus was speaking to this man, he just simply used a natural thing that we all understand, a birth.

We understand that a person begins and they come into existence and there's something. They weren't there before and now they're there. Friend, listen.

It's a real thing. My arm is not long enough. It's a real thing to enter through that door and to be on the road to heaven.

You know, we are living in a world that is so dominated by the natural. You know, all this internet stuff and technology and you'd almost think that this is all there is to it. Just everything you can see and you can touch and you can feel.

But there is a spiritual birth that is needed if you're ever going to be in heaven. And that's really what I want to zero in on. What has been impressing me just of late is this.

Isn't it something? You try to imagine the size of heaven. It's beyond me. You try to imagine the billions and the billions of people that are saved on the road to heaven and you want to know something? The Lord Jesus had a personal conversation with every one of them.

You think, I was thinking of it as a contrast. Here you have a big company and here's the president at the head of the company and he wants to do this. So what does he do? He doesn't have that much time.

So he hires all these people to represent him and he says go out there and interview these people and if they fit the bill, bring them into the corporation. Isn't it something that the one who owns heaven, God, Christ, every single person that's going to find themselves in heaven, they can go back to a point in time, wherever they were across this world, whatever time of day it was, whatever age they were at, they had a personal moment with the very God of heaven. Nobody gets saved in groups.

Here is this story of Nicodemus. One man and God. Now I want you to look at your life because we're living in a society today where it's so easy to say, oh I'm a Christian, I'm born again.

You know there's all kinds of people that they have a little run-in with the law and they often don't forget it. Or they have a run-in with the mother-in-law, they don't forget it. I've had them.

Or they have run-ins with a preacher and they don't forget it. He's an awful hard man to forget, Murray. But you know something? Once you meet Christ, you'll never forget him.

Never. There might be all kinds of years of water, so to speak, under the bridge. But there's something so unique about an individual speaking directly to the God of heaven.

Now that natural world is not going to tell you that. Because that natural world just sort of looks at everything at the physical plane. But what I was really, another thing I was enjoying was this.

Here we're reading a story that happened a couple of thousand, 1,500, 1,600, 2,000 years ago. The very same thing happens today. God is wanting to speak one-on-one with sinners.

He hasn't changed. His entrance into heaven is the very same. That's why it's so careful to look at the Word of God.

Because here's this, obviously, a conversation between just two people. And as the Lord Jesus is speaking to this man, except ye, except ye, ye, thee. He's in the singular, right? And then all of a sudden he applies it to the whole world.

Let me just emphasize that to read it. Go look at your Bible, chapter 3. This is why I can preach this to you tonight. Verse number 7, marvel not that I said unto thee.

I understand that. Ye. Why wouldn't you say you? Like you, just you, Nicodemus.

Do you know what the Lord is teaching there, dear friend? What Nicodemus need, you need. This is something that is for the entire world, this salvation, being born again. It's a very real thing.

It's an absolute necessity to get in through that door. So here's what I want you to, I want you to try to align yourself up with Nicodemus. There was a moment in that conversation between the Lord Jesus and Nicodemus.

Just try to visualize it in your mind. Put yourself in that room as a fly on the wall. And as this man came with all of his knowledge and all of his reverence for the Word of God, and as the Lord started to lay this out, you need to be born again.

There was a moment when he understood, I'm not. I don't know what this man is talking about. And he's linking it with entrance into heaven.

You know, friend, this night, Saturday, would be a monumental night if I could just get one person to put all of the noise out of your head, and just get you to stop and understand this. I'm not ready for heaven. I'm not born again.

That means I'm in my sins. And that's where I'm heading to. Like it must have been quite a shock to this man as he's looking at the Lord Jesus, and the Lord just keeps coming off without authority.

If you're not born again, you'll not be in heaven. And it must have been quite a moment when in his mind, all of his works and all of his ideas, they just, they just crumbled to the ground. I remember that day.

I remember sitting in a meeting. I can remember the preacher, Peter Ramsey was speaking. And I can remember as a boy of 24, sitting about over there.

And I can remember as he bowed his head and finished preaching. I remember this little person said to God, God, I'm not saved. And I want to be saved.

Well, that was quite a moment in my life. That's when I'm getting down. That's when the sinner's getting down to business.

You know, we're so good at evading the issues, aren't we? Some people are professionals at it. And you know what? The devil loves to see you. You ever see a dog chase his tail? You get nowhere.

Well, there's all kinds of activity and noise, but you get nowhere. Do you know what God is looking for? Stop. I'm not saved.

I'm not born again. I'm not ready for heaven. I am actually on the road to hell.

What a meeting that would be. My sakes, listen, it would just be worth preaching for 10 hours. If someone could just come to that understanding, I'm on the road to hell.

And that's where I'm going because of my sins. I wonder if there's someone here tonight and you're tired of not knowing. I don't know.

The older I get, the more I appreciate I am saved. I mean, I don't know. I wish you could just jump inside my body for a second.

I mind. It is a wonderful thing, friend, to have peace with God. It's just the more people you run into and you talk to, they haven't a clue and they're confused.

And here I'm sitting with the word of God. And I know that when I die, I'll be in heaven. Do you know that now the devil will give you everything else but that recently I was talking to a young man and he had false profession.

I said, well, what took you so long to give it up? He said, I knew right from day one, I had nothing. But he said, the more I push it, put it off the harder God. Oh, look, I'll tell you, I hope I'm not talking to somebody tonight and you're holding onto something empty here.

That's why I'm trying to emphasize when the spirit of God comes into the life of a sinner and they're born of God, it's real. In spite of what this wicked old world will tell you, God is not interested. You know, I was thinking of this recently too.

There's so many things going through my mind. I better slow down here for a minute. But everybody asks, how come Nicodemus came to the Lord by night? I've heard that question.

What a dumb question. If you don't mind me saying that. Do you know what this very gospel tells me? Right from the mouth of the Lord Jesus, no man cometh unto me except the Father draw him.

That's why Nicodemus came by night. You see, we, like I said, go back to this natural physical world and we're literally brainwashed into thinking that God is so far removed, the spiritual is so disconnected from this world. Listen, friend, God is actively working, forget the world, in this meeting tonight.

God is trying to draw you to Christ. I tell you, as a gospel preacher, that gives me great confidence in God. It's not left up to me.

I go to places and I don't know a person from the hole in the ground, we say back where I come from. I wouldn't know what your background is, what your history is, but I understand this. You can see it on somebody's face.

They listen. Now, what are you doing with that? I honestly believe there's people in this meeting tonight, you know you don't have this and you know you want it. Friend, that is God trying to draw you.

There's absolutely nothing that you could put in front of it that's more important than that. Because if I could just get you once again to look at this, I couldn't even begin. I couldn't even begin to explain to you what that place is like.

But I know it's real. I've never seen it with this eye, but I've seen it with the mind's eye in this book. And if I want to get an understanding of what this place is like, I just go and I read about the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus.

Tremendous. Friend, we need to, we need to sort of slow this meeting down, okay? My time is just about gone, but I want you just to sort of, let's just bring the day to a halt. Let's forget about tomorrow and what's going to happen next week and your whole life.

Forget about it. Am I ready for heaven? Never been born again. I'm sitting here confused and I want to know.

Friend, listen, you know what the Lord Jesus did? He directed the man to the Bible. Isn't that wonderful? Once again, as a gospel preacher, that gives me great confidence. I don't have to sit next to a sinner and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk until the cows come home.

I can just tell them this, go home and read your Bible. Well, there's a good question. Are you reading the Bible? Want to be saved? Don't tell me you want to be saved and you're not reading the Bible.

That's how God speaks. Do you realize, friend, oh, the world doesn't believe it, but that book is living. That book is living.

And that book is able to bring life, eternal life. One thing I appreciate about this man very much, you sit with a sinner and you only talk about two or three minutes. That's it.

Get them to the Bible. Friend, you got a Bible? I'll give you one. I'll buy you as many as you want.

I love to see a person just with the Bible. I remember the time we were having meetings and we went to visit this lady and you'd walk into her house, the dear older lady, and as you walked into the house, there's all this Roman Catholic imagery, idolatry, put a word on it, what it is. And there she was, just the Bible right on the couch.

What a surprise, eh? A couple days later went by, you know what she said? I just got saved five minutes ago. No preacher, you don't need them. You've got God trying to draw the sinner.

God is active in this world all across. It amazes me to think that every single person that gets through that door, a personal contact with Jesus Christ. I go back gladly 21 years.

I can I can picture the place, April the 4th, 1990. I'm 45. Don't say everybody gets caught in the math.

And there I was in that little tiny closet, 10 by 10, working on the telephone wires. And my brain was thinking about my sin. And my sins are taking me to hell.

And I just remember calling out to God, Oh God, help me. I don't want to go to hell. And just in a moment of time, the Bible says Christ died for you.

Pardon the expression, but I hardly believe it was that simple. I just remember sitting there stunned. What? Christ died for me? I think it's a tremendous thing.

This is what encourages me. Here's a man with so much religion, so many ideas and wrong ideas in his head. And he comes up and he meets the authority of God in the person of Jesus Christ.

You know why he got saved? Because he bowed to it. He stopped arguing with it, trying to analyze it. He just simply gave God credit.

You're right, I'm the sinner. And the Lord Jesus just directed him to the Word of God. Remember that little story in the Old Testament? There those people were bitten because of their sin.

God said take a copper picture of what has bitten them, the snake, and put it on a pole. Copper speaks of what has gone through the fire. God is going to judge what has bitten them, sin, in that thing.

And then he says, even so must the Son of God be lifted up. Do you understand, friend, from the Bible that when Jesus died, God judged my sin in him. That's why I can go to heaven.

That's why we read that, and with this I end, that's why we read that lovely, don't you ever quote John 3 and 16 and leave out the four. Don't say God loved, God so loved the world. Listen, the very reason that God can offer eternal life is this, for God so loved the world.

Do you want to know what the second one is? For Christ didn't come to condemn it. He should have. That's what we deserve as sinners.

We don't deserve the grace of God, it's the wrath of God. But because of God's love and because of Jesus Christ coming in it, not to condemn it, but to die for your sin. Do you know what God is offering you tonight? It's almost hard to believe.

In the eternal life to you. Now what are you gonna do with it? Walk out and turn your back on God? Or is there someone here tonight that would just take their place as a sinner? God is right. And just accept Jesus died for me.