SPROUL: In our first session in our study of what
it means to be born again, I tried to focus our attention on Jesus’ teaching to Nicodemus
of the absolute necessity of spiritual rebirth for entering into the Kingdom of God. What I would like to do in this segment is
to discuss another aspect of rebirth and that is its mysterious character. So that the point I was trying to make the
first time was that regeneration is necessary. Now I would like to turn our attention to
the second point, which is that regeneration is mysterious. A few weeks ago I had an experience, an opportunity
to talk privately with a gentlemen for one hour whom I had met just very briefly only
once in my life before that and never had the opportunity for one-to-one conversation,
and it was Billy Graham. And I had the opportunity to eat dinner with
Dr. Graham in Ashville, North Carolina. And we discussed several things on that occasion,
but in the middle of our discussion, I don’t know how we got on to it, but we each told
to the other one our own conversion experience. And Billy began to relate to me what had happened
to him as a young man when he came under the influence of the preaching of a man by the
name of Mordecai Hamm, who was doing a series of services in Charlotte, North Carolina. And Billy went through this episode for me
privately, which he has preached about many times, and written about in his books, but
to hear him tell it one-on-one after all of these years was a very humbling experience
for me to sit there and listen to this. Because what came across in his story was
that it seemed to me that he was as excited about it as if it had happened last night. He was still filled with a passion and a flame
that had been kindled years and years and years and years ago in that moment when he
met Christ. And he was describing all the different things
that were … he went through as he was drawn to these services and listened night after
night after night until he finally was irresistibly drawn to Christ. In fact, Billy looked at me and he said, “The
Holy Spirit did it all.” And he was talking about being born of the
Spirit. I remember vividly my wife’s conversion
to Christ. I was converted to Christ a few months before
Vesta was and she was coming to our college campus and we were going to have a meeting
with our Christian organization there on the campus, and I was in a real moral dilemma. Vesta and I had gone together at that point
for about five years and it was our desire and our plan to be married. We were engaged, and suddenly I found myself
a new Christian, and I was told very early in my religious experience that as a Christian
I was not permitted to marry a woman who was not a Christian. But this is the woman that I wanted to marry,
and this is the woman I was engaged to, and this was fierce conflict for me at that point
in my life. And so that’s what I was struggling with
while I was away from Vesta. Back at the ranch, Vesta was struggling with
this strange behavior that had taken over her fiancé who had been indeed absent from
any serious religious persuasion prior to whatever it was that had turned him upside
down, and she didn’t know whether I was losing my mind or what. And so what I did the day that she was to
arrive, I skipped classes that day and got alone in my room and locked the door and I
got on the ground beside my bed and I prayed like I never prayed. I prayed like an Arminian to tell you the
truth. I was saying, “Hey God, I don’t know what
the eternal decrees are, but if You do have one that doesn’t fit my preference here,
You better change it because” … I wrestled with God for hours for that occasion and made
this commitment that if Vesta did not become a Christian that weekend that I would break
up with her. And I put it on the line. And … we had this meeting and I did not
tell Vesta, “Look, if you don’t make it this weekend, I want the ring back, you know.” There was none of that. I didn’t let her have any idea of the prayers. And not only was I praying, other people were
praying as well. She came to that meeting. And quite apart from me, she met Christ in
that meeting. And she came out of that meeting; she was
so excited. She was like Archimedes coming out of the
bathtub screaming “Eureka, I have found it.” She knew what every Christian knows, the joy
of her redemption. But when she went to bed that night, she told
me the next day, she said that all night long she kept waking up, and she kept pinching
herself, and said, “Is it still there? Do I still have it?” And then she would check with her internal
feelings and say, “Yep, it’s still there.” She’d roll back over and get back to sleep. Well the next morning when we got together,
she told me about how she kept waking up and asking herself if it was still there. And then she made this comment to me, which
I’ll never forget. She said, “Now I know who the Holy Spirit
is.” For the first time in her life she had a personal
understanding of the identity and the character of God the Holy Spirit. And she said, you know, she had heard the
name of the Holy Spirit. She wasn’t totally devoid of activities
in religion. She had been reared in the church, and she
had gone regularly attended church and they would say their prayers and they would pronounce
the benediction, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. But it was all ceremony to her, and there
was no personal substance of application involved in this religious background that she had,
and then she said, “Now I know who the Holy Spirit is.” But how easily do you think she could have
articulated that to somebody at that point? I’d been going crazy trying to tell her. It was like a blind man … uh … a person
trying to explain a rainbow to a blind man. And it’s one of the most difficult things
in the world to articulate what it means to have a spiritual experience that changes your
life, that really changes your life. Regeneration is a mystery. And it’s not simply a mystery to those of
us who experience it, but it is also an impenetrable mystery at the bottom line even for skilled
theologians as it was for Nicodemus. I want to take you back now to that conversation
that Jesus had with Nicodemus where Jesus said to him, “Unless a man is born of the
Spirit, he can’t see the kingdom of God and he can’t enter the kingdom of God.” What did Nicodemus say? Do you remember? When Jesus said those words to him, Nicodemus
looked at Jesus and said, “How can these things be? Jesus, what are you talking about? How can these things be? Does a man have to enter a second time into
his mother’s womb and be born anew? Now that is one of the most crass comments
that anybody ever made to Jesus. Talking about a grown person trying to squeeze
himself back into the birth canal so that he could undergo this second birth that Jesus
says it’s a requirement. That’s why Jesus talked about this concept
of regeneration. Notice the prefix re, something that has to
happen again, and the word to generate in the ancient world, in the Greek world, the
word that they’re using here means to be, become, or to be … happen. And so Nicodemus is confused here. He says, “What do you mean born a second
time? How can … that can’t be possible for somebody
to be born a second time? He missed the point that Jesus was trying
to make, that Jesus was talking about a second birth that is a real birth, but it’s not
a mere repetition of the first birth. Now to try to explain something of this mystery
to Nicodemus … … “How can these things be? How can a man be born when he is old?” Jesus gives this word of explanation. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh. And that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Now Jesus again is … seems to have a tremendous
grasp of the obvious, but it is an obvious point, an elementary point, that bears repeating
for the ears of this theologian. You know where most professional theologians
go astray is not at some technical point of theology, but at a foundational point, at
an elementary point, a point that should have been mastered many, many years ago. In fact, later on in this text, Jesus rebukes
Nicodemus, mildly, but He rebukes him. He says, “Nicodemus, are you a teacher of
Israel and you don’t understand these things?” It’s as if Jesus says, “Shame on you. You should know these things. This is the ABCs of Biblical religion. This is no startling esoteric arcane innovation
that I’m making now in the Twentieth … in the First Century here. This is something that is at the root of the
Judeo Christian faith.” The reason it’s necessary is because that
which is born of the flesh is flesh. And you can’t get spirit out of flesh. You want to have an oak tree; you’ve got
to plant an acorn and not a strawberry. The flesh only yields flesh. And everyone is born in the flesh. That’s not new, Nicodemus. The Old Testament teaches that concept on
every page. And that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. And we’re talking about spiritual birth. Don’t confuse it with a mere repetition
of a biological process. I’m talking about something far more mysterious
than that. Unless one is born of water and the Spirit
he can’t enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. And then He says, “Do not marvel that I
say unto you, ‘you must be born again.’” … If there’s ever an injunction that was
uttered by Jesus of Nazareth that His people have ignored, it’s that one. Because people still get astonished and uptight
and nervous if somebody suggests that again that it’s necessary to be reborn. Jesus said, “Don’t be amazed by that. Don’t marvel at that.” And then He begins to answer Nicodemus’s
question about “How.” But in answering the mystery, He continues
the mystery. What does He say? “The wind blows where it wills. You hear the sound of it, but you don’t
know where it comes from, and you don’t know where it’s going. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” There’s a play on words here that’s marvelous
with Jesus. In the Old Testament when we meet the Spirit
of God for the first time, the Spirit of God is called the ruah of Yahweh. And the word ruah is Hebrew is used for three
different concepts. The same word is the word for spirit; it is
the word for breath; and it is the word for wind. And that’s one of the strange aspects of
language that that same phenomenon of the same three words being communicated by one
word is found not only in the Hebrew language, but also in the Greek language. That the word pneuma in Greek is the Greek
word for spirit; it’s the Greek word for breath; and it is the Greek word for wind. So that when Jesus in the Upper Room breathes
on His disciples and says to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” the word for breath there
is pneuma. He pneumatizes them and says, “Receive the
Holy Pneuma. Just as in creation when God creates man in
the original act of creation the way in which this narrative gives as an account is that
God reaches down and takes the mud from the ground, the dust of the earth, and He molds
it and He shapes it as a sculptor would a piece of clay. But … when the world’s greatest sculptor
is finished with a piece of clay, that beautiful piece of art still remains inert and lifeless. But when God finishes shaping and forming
the figure of a man, He puts that piece of mud to His mouth and what does the Scripture
say? “He breathes into that form the breath of
life, and man become a living nephesh, a living soul. The breath of God creates the spirit of man. So Jesus played with this language that He
is, of course, certain Nicodemus understands the play on the words. He said, “You want to know how regeneration
takes place, what’s the process?” He said, “Nicodemus, the pneuma blows where
it will. You hear the sound of it; you hear the wind. You see the effects of it; you can perceive
with your eyes the influence of the wind. You can see the trees starting to bend, but
you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes. And that’s the way the pneuma is.” That’s the way the Spirit works. His work of rebirth is mysterious. Now why is it mysterious? There’s a lot of mystery associated with
the person of the Holy Spirit. I go back to what I said about Vesta the night
that she became a Christian. “Now I know who the Holy Spirit is.” One of the greatest works that’s ever been
written in the history of the church on the person and the work of the Holy Spirit was
written by the Prime Minister of Holland, who was also a theologian. His name was Abraham Kuyper. And in Abraham Kuyper’s classic work he
starts off that work on the Holy Spirit by saying, “The Holy Spirit never leaves footprints
in the sand.” The reason why regeneration is mysterious
is because regeneration is invisible. I can’t see God doing something in your
soul. That’s why we can fool each other about
this business, can’t we? I can claim to be reborn. I can profess to be regenerate and not be. And by the same token, what? I can say, “I don’t think I’m regenerate,”
and actually be regenerate. That’s why we’re warned in the Scriptures
that man looks on the outward appearances but God looks on the heart. That regeneration, rebirth, is a spiritual
reality that takes place inside a person that transforms that person, meets that necessary
condition of which we have spoken, but is invisible, like the wind is invisible. Last week they had an artist on television
and he was doing some sketching and some painting before the camera and as he was painting he
was explaining the techniques that he was using. Now I’m going to try to illustrate that
for you without the ability or the tools to do it. I’m not going to be able to duplicate what
he did, but he started off by painting some clouds, some nice billowy, aren’t they nice? Billowy clouds on the canvas, and he showed
how he used this particular brush to shade them and how … which kind of swirls he put
on the canvas as he painted these clouds. But when he was finished with the first point
of his … the first part of the clouds, he put this particular brush down and he took
out this great big thick brush and he said, “Now is you look at those clouds they look
like clouds, like these clouds back behind us, but they are frozen on the canvas. They’re still, as if they were paralyzed. But real clouds are always in motion. Because clouds not only have moisture but
they are being blown by the wind.” And he went on to this thing … thing about
air currents and how clouds are blown and so then he went on and he took this big brush
and he took it in such a way where he moved his hand around and sort of tucked it up like
that and again like that so that at the top of the clouds there was not a symmetrical
pure straight line that clearly delineated the edge of the cloud but the clouds were
moving and swirling up as … and you could almost feel the wind in the picture as a result
of this technique. And then he went on to say, he said, you know,
he said, “It used to take me two weeks to get that effect,” he said, “until I found
this brush that I can just do it like that.” But we see those effects of the wind. We can see the results of the wind. But the wind is invisible to the naked eye. You can feel it; you can sense its presence. You know when it’s windy and you know when
it’s calm, and you know when there’s just a zephyr in the air. Jesus says that is analogous to the secret
inward work of spiritual rebirth. It’s like the wind. If you want to see the evidence, the tangible
manifestation of rebirth, what has to happen? You have to look for the fruits of a changed
life. I can’t see your soul. All I can see is your behavior. And that’s what causes so much problems
for us because we can see changes in our lives for the good, but we also see what? The same old stuff. We see the things that we don’t want to
see, and we don’t want anybody else to see. And so the question that you have to ask yourself
as you’re analyzing the state of your own soul is not where were you when you were born
again, how, … you know … how did it happen? But the question is this. Is there any evidence of a change in my inner
direction of my disposition of my attitude towards the things of God? The unregenerate person is at best indifferent
about the things of God. Really doesn’t care. Isn’t it funny that you come, if you are
reborn, it’s … so many people seem to forget what they were like beforehand. And they get … nothing worse than a reformed
drunk or a reformed person … they get real puffed up and arrogant and judgmental about
people who are not born again. That’s bad. You have to remember who you were and where
you came from. But you know what I think is one of the hardest
things for a Christian to endure with grace is to hear the name of Christ mutilated publicly. Does it get to you? [several words unclear] your spine? It gets up and down my spine. And I always try not to let people know that
that really gets to me like that, because it’s not our job to be their policemen about
that. They don’t realize. They don’t realize what … but see to use
the name of Christ in cursing in a sense tells us the state of our innermost affections with
respect to God. So as I say, we’re at best indifferent and
at worst openly hostile towards God, when we are unregenerate. Because the first thing that changes when
you are changed inwardly is not even your behavior. It’s the internal disposition of your soul. It is the attitude of your heart that is the
first change of spiritual renewal. You now have an affection for God that you
never had before. It is not perfect and it’s far from being
perfected but it is there and it’s real and it’s working. You’ll not be able to locate it on an x-ray. Its origins and its power will probably remain
mysterious to you until the day you die, but the undeniable reality is that your heart
is beating for God where it never did before.
