Jesus and Nicodemus

We're going to turn in our New Testament to the Gospel of John, please. And we're going to read at chapter number 3, we're going to read about the five words, he must be born again, and the setting, the story that took place when the Lord Jesus quoted those words. So, in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and then comes the Gospel of John.

And we're going to start at chapter 2, just at the end, verse number 23. So, John chapter 2 and verse 23. Now, when he, and that's a reference to the Lord Jesus, was in Jerusalem at the Passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name when they saw the miracles which he did.

But Jesus did not commit himself onto them because he knew all men. And need it not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man. John 3 and verse 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, that simply means teacher. 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, that simply means let it be, let it be, or amen, amen.

Verily, verily, 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? Now, you'll notice that Nicodemus dropped the again word. He just said born, born.

Verse number 5, Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee. Now, the Lord Jesus is going to explain that word again. Look what it says, verse 5. Jesus said, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water, that's a reference to the word of God, and of the spirit, that's a reference to the spirit of God.

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, reference to the spirit of God, the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth. So is everyone 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? And knowest not these things.

Look at 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, now notice this, should not perish but have eternal life.

Just lodge that in your mind, eternal life. Verse 16, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have, now lodge this in your brain, everlasting life. Verse 17, For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.

Lodge that word, saved, in your mind. Now, we'll look to the Lord to give help of what we've heard and the thoughts that we have on this chapter. Sometimes, you know, when you travel around and you preach the gospel as we're doing tonight, sometimes people are very unfamiliar with biblical terms.

Now, my brother has spent a little bit of time introducing a biblical term, born again. It's taken from the Lord Jesus Christ, his very own words to a man, just like you and I, and this man was a very religious man. That's what a Pharisee was, for those that do not know that from knowing your Bible.

A Pharisee was a very religious man. He was a man that spent his day trying to encourage people to read about God, be respectful to God, and he was very devoted himself. But this man was not ready for heaven.

In spite of all of his religion and knowledge about God and respect for God, he was not ready for heaven. Now, that's important because many verses in the Bible support the fact that those things do not make you ready for heaven, as we've been hearing. There has to be something called the new birth that takes place in your life that gets you ready for heaven.

Now, what I find interesting about the story is this, the Lord Jesus took time to explain to this man what it means to be born again. That's why I got you to lodge in your brain, to be born again means to have eternal life. That's one word the Lord used.

To be born again means to have everlasting life. That's another way of looking at it. And then finally, the Lord Jesus used that word to be saved means to be born again.

So the Lord Jesus spent much time trying to make sure that this man did not miss what it meant to be born again. And we want to do the same thing tonight because the Lord is our example. So we don't want you to answer out loud, and we're very thankful you're here, but we want you to think, if I was to stop you at the door, which I will not, and I was to hold onto your hand and shake your hand and say, sir, ma'am, are you born again? What would you tell me? Yes or no? You say, I don't know what that means.

Okay, let's come at it another angle. Do you have eternal life? Yes or no? I'm still confused. I don't know what that means.

Let's come at it from another angle. Do you have everlasting life? I still don't know what you mean. Well, let's go to the other word.

Are you saved? And that's a very simple word, saved. I mean, you could be walking down the street here, and you might see a house on fire, and there might be somebody out on the lawn, and you go over and say, what happened? And the person says, I just was saved from a burning house. Now, you wouldn't have to get a dictionary out and go, just what does the word saved mean? You could see the context.

You could look at the burning house, the fire trucks. You could see the person outside the house, and right away, you could put one and one together and get two, and you could understand this person was delivered, rescued, saved from death. Well, friend, that's what it means to be born again.

You see, looking at this chart again, which we love, you and I are born wrong. We are born in sin. We are born on an awful road of destruction that's heading us to a place called hell, and we need to be saved, rescued from where our sins are taking us.

That's why the new birth is so important. And as I preach to you, my mind is going back. April the 4th, 1990, it was a Wednesday afternoon.

I discovered that I needed to be saved. I discovered that I was a sinner. I was wrong before God.

I remember asking God, God, I'm a sinner, save me. And I remember understanding for the first time why the Lord Jesus died. Personally, I had an appreciation that he died for me.

I wasn't concerned about the world. I wasn't concerned about you or anyone. I was just concerned about myself.

And I have understood from April the 4th, 1990, it's not a wishy-washy thing. It's not something that's really good one day and low the other day. For the last 25 years, I have had and I have eternal life.

I am born again. I'm able to tell you that I am saved, and I'm going to heaven. You say, because you preach.

No, no, no, you missed the point. April the 4th, I was not preaching on April the 4th, 1990. April the 4th, 1990, I simply acknowledged my sin to God.

And I understood in that moment of time what this man understood in a conversation with the Lord Jesus, that only the Lord Jesus can save from sin. So friend, if you're here tonight religious, thank God you're religious. We love clean living people.

That's great. It makes society a better place. If you're here and you go to church regularly, wonderful.

You have a respect for God. You have a reverence for his word. That's great.

If you're here tonight and you say, I'm honest, that's great. That makes society a better place to live in. But that'll never take you to heaven.

That will never take you to heaven. It will never give you the assurance that you're going to heaven. Because if we did go along that route for just a few minutes, when would you ever be able to come to a point where you said, I've done enough good deeds, I've given enough money to the church, I'm now able to say I'm going to heaven.

See, that's the difference between what the Lord Jesus has done and what man tries to do to get to heaven. What the Lord Jesus has done by shedding his blood on the cross for our sin, God has been satisfied and God is able to now give salvation full and free to you. So my question to you is this.

It's what this man had to face. This man had to face a very important question, statement. I'm not born again.

That was a milestone in his life. Here he comes to the Lord Jesus and he's got his mind all full of questions. And the Lord Jesus even acknowledges who he is.

He's a teacher from among the Jews. He wasn't your normal everyday Jew. He was a very religious man.

He was a rabbi. He was looked upon as being, wow. There's a teacher of God.

I mean, you can just imagine how society looked at him. If anybody's going to heaven, it has to be this man because look at what he's doing. But the Lord Jesus put his finger on the issue.

Nicodemus, you're not ready for heaven. Friend, I need to tell you tonight that you are not ready for heaven. Do you know what that means? That means you're ready for hell.

And if you were to die right now without salvation, you would go to hell. That's solemn. That's why a meeting like this we don't take lightly.

There are people that come to a gospel meeting and maybe this is your first time. Glad to see you. Maybe it's many times.

Glad to see you. But this could be your last time. And really what God is trying to do through this man, through myself, in our weakness, God, through the word of God, we're trying to warn you.

Actually, that is God trying to reach out to you. Now, I give this man credit for acknowledging this. He looked at a physical man and here's what he said.

We know that you're a teacher come from God. But he's starting off well. He's not just a normal man.

The word of God is very clear that the Lord Jesus is actually God. Having come down from heaven, he took to himself humanity and he started to preach and he started to tell people that they needed to be right. They need to be born again.

So here's this man, Nicodemus, acknowledging the authority of this man, Christ Jesus. Friend, have you ever acknowledged, bowed before the authority that is in the word of God? I'm up here tonight not quoting to you from something the gospel hall people put together. You must be born again.

That bears no weight. There's absolutely no authority in that. But here I am tonight quoting from the word of God, the living word of God, right from the mouth of the Lord Jesus, and the Lord Jesus said, full authority, if you're ever going to be in heaven, you must be born again.

Now I had an uncle, my father's twin brother. He was quite a character. He was a rascal.

He was a retired lawyer and everything he looked at, he came at it from an analytical mind. And he wanted to be saved. And later in life, and we believe he got saved a couple of months before he died and he's now gone.

So this man preached to him many times. I preached to him many times. I argued with him many times.

Finally I gave up arguing. I just let him go. Then he comes to me one day and he says, Scott, I'm a red letter man.

Red letter man, what does that mean? Well, you can buy certain Bibles where they put the words of the Lord Jesus in red letter and they make a distinction between the black letters that other men spoke. I said, great, here's five red letters. He must be born again.

Right from the mouth of the Lord Jesus. He didn't like that. He was willing to accept all the other red letters, all the other red words, and all the statements, but he just didn't like that.

You know why? Maybe it's like you. You're sitting there going, I don't have this. Good.

That's where it's all going to start. You can't help somebody unless they first acknowledge they need help. You can lead a horse to water.

You can poke his head in the water. But if a horse doesn't want to drink, he's not going to drink. And that's the unique thing about salvation, friend.

As much as I would love to come off this platform and lay my hands upon you and say you're safe, I can't do it. I've got no authority to do that. But I can point you to the only person who can, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, friend, listen. In this audience, let's get simple here, okay? Is there anyone sitting here tonight willing to face this tremendous issue? I'm not born again. I'm not ready for heaven.

It's been a nagging question. I'm trying to do the best I can. I'm doing everything I can in my power, but I still keep come up empty.

I'm not ready to meet. I don't have that confidence. Friend, listen.

I know that if my heart stopped beating right here, on the authority of the Word of God, I know that I would be in heaven. That's a wonderful truth to know. That brings such a level of peace into a person's mind, knowing Jesus died for my sin.

Now, it's very interesting what the Lord Jesus does to this man. With this, I'll end. The Lord Jesus has this story with bookend, bookend by two stories.

We read about the Passover in the end of Chapter 2. That was a tremendous thing in the life of a Jew. You might remember the story from Exodus 12 in the Passover. The Passover is really a story when the children of Israel were in Egypt, way back in Exodus 12, and God was going to come down through Moses, and he was going to deliver them from the bondage, an exterior bondage that was upon them, and they couldn't break it.

And that's what God did. Then the Lord Jesus speaks about another story, Numbers 21, as the serpent was lifted up from the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Shortly after the children of Israel were delivered from the bondage of Egypt and they were coming out into the desert, they started to sin against God in Numbers 21.

Do you know what God did? God started to judge their sin. And God sent these poisonous snakes into the camp, and those snakes bit the people, and they injected poison on the inside. Now, listen.

You know what the Lord Jesus is teaching this man? That shows us the outward bondage of sin and the inward poison of sin. And friend, only the Lord Jesus can deliver you from it. You go back to the children of Israel in Exodus 12.

Nobody could break that grip that Pharaoh had upon those people. Nobody. But only God could come into that situation and break the power of Egypt over the children of Israel and lead them out.

Isn't it interesting when you come to Numbers 21? Here are the people bitten by the snakes, and it's much like today. All they asked Moses, go to God and get God to take away the snakes. But listen.

Taking away the snakes would not take away the poison within. There are people today and they think salvation is if I could just get rid of this vice or this awful sinful habit, I will be okay. But friend, you have to understand from the word of God that we are not sinners because of our behavior.

We are sinners because of our birth. It's a poison that's on the inside. And all of the institutions that men and women have across this world trying to break the bondage of sin on the outward and trying to cure the inward desires for sin, they fail because only the blood of Christ can break the power of sin.

I have experienced it. Before I was saved, I used to be a DJ in a nightclub and into alcohol and drugs and stuff like that. And you had a desire to want to stop, but you couldn't stop.

Even though he got sick as a dog, the next week you're right back at it again. And you'd wake up with a hangover and say, I'm never going to do it again. You're right back at it again.

Because sin has an awful grip that you can't break. In spite of your clean living, friend, sin is on the inside. You'd be embarrassed if I was able to write all your thoughts today on these walls.

So would I. Because we're all the same. So friend, would you like your sin broken? More than that, would you like your sins forgiven? More than that, would you like your sins taken away? More than that, would you love to be ready for heaven? Do you know how you get it? Listen to what happened to this man. Here's this man with this story in his head.

The serpent lifted up. And all the message was to the children of Israel was, listen, if you got the poison of that snake inside of you and you're dying, just look to that serpent of brass that has been provided by God. Lift it up.

And you know what the Lord said back in the Old Testament? If you look, you'll live. And now the Lord Jesus looks at this man eye to eye, as I'm doing to you, and he says, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Do you know what the Lord is telling this man? Just look to Calvary.

That's where sin is dealt with. You know, I love the pictures. There's a lot of pictures in the Bible that picture for us the Lord Jesus.

Okay? The Lord Jesus through the Bible, He's likened to a hen. He's likened to a sparrow. He's likened to a pelican.

They're lovely, lovely pictures that bring out an aspect. This is strange to us. The Lord Jesus is likened to a serpent of brass.

Now, generally, we're afraid of serpents, snakes. But you know what was unique about this serpent? This serpent never bit one person. It wasn't alive.

It was made out of copper, brass. Never bit one person. This serpent here that was lifted up never had poison in it.

What a lovely picture of the Lord Jesus. You know why the brass was used? Brass is the only thing in the Word of God that can handle the heat, the fire, that goes through the fire. Listen, friend.

When the Lord Jesus was lifted up on that pole, He never bit no one. Never hurt no one. He had no poison within Him.

He never committed sin. He couldn't commit sin. And He's the only one that was able to go through the fire of God for your sin and mine.

That is what I'm resting in tonight to take me to heaven. I hope you don't go out of this building tonight thinking, man, that fellow can really preach so he must be going to heaven. If I was preaching to go to heaven, I would have been in hell long ago.

No, it's not my preaching. Did you notice we sang about one man? Christ. We preach about one man.

Christ. Not once have I said, join our church. Nobody in here will come alongside you with a membership card and say, here, sign here, give us some money, a donation, and come to our church.

No. I don't care where you go on Sunday, okay? But here's what I care about. Where are you going to be when you die? Are you going to be in heaven? Or are you going to be in hell? What makes the difference? Are you born again? Are you saved? Do you have everlasting, eternal life? That's the only thing that matters.

So may you be like this man. In a quick conversation at night, he quickly came to this understanding. I'm not born again.

I'm not ready. And do you know what he said? How? How? How can it happen? And the Lord Jesus directed him to the Word of God and Nicodemus that night, because later on in the gospel it says he came to Jesus by night. And that's where he was saved.

And I, one day, will meet Nicodemus in heaven. Will you? Thank you very much for listening. Roll Bower Heads.