The Previous Episode Unpacked our Need to be Born Again. This Episode Unpacks how it Happens.

In this episode, I point out that the New Testament was written in Greek. With that in mind, I explain that the Greek word translated as "again" in English is "anothen," which means "again" and "above". In addition to presenting verses that explain how being born again happens, I use again and above to guard against thinking that "I am a Christian" when you are not born again - and also thinking that I am "born again" when you are not born again. Note: A Christian is someone who is born again, nothing more, less, or in between. Considering how the church is presenting a watered-down gospel, I fear that thinking I am a Christian when you aren't a Christian is becoming the norm rather than the exception.  

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, my name is Dennis Bellkofer, and I want to thank you for tuning into my podcast, A Look Into Why Christianity Differs from Other Religions, a podcast for Christians, non-Christians, atheists, and everybody else. So welcome. In the previous episode, I unpacked our need to be born again. In this episode, How It Happens. And in this episode, I include synonyms for born again: rebirth, regeneration, and born from above. And I begin by reading commentary by Dr. R. C. Sproul from the Reformation Bible, which is housed in the English Standard Version. The English Standard Version translation of the Bible. Dr. Sproul was the founder of Lingener Ministries and went to be with the Lord a couple of years ago. God had used Dr. Sproul mightily in my life through his teachings to strengthen my walk with the Lord. And I count it a privilege to read to you what he wrote about the rebirth being born again in the Reformation Bible. And it's a privilege for me to carry on his legacy this way. You can also learn about R. C. Sproul through YouTube or on YouTube. His videos are there, his teaching videos, and you will discover how rich his teachings were and continue to be through his writings and his videos. So this is what Dr. Sproul wrote about and what he said about the rebirth in the Reformation Bible. Regeneration is the theological term used to describe rebirth. It refers to a new generating, a new genesis, a new beginning. It is more than turning over a new leaf. It marks the beginning of a new life in a radically renewed person. Peter speaks of believers having been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God. In first Peter chapter one, verse 23. Regeneration is the work of the Holy Spirit upon those who are spiritually dead. The Spirit recreates the human heart, quickening it from spiritual death to spiritual life. Regenerate people are new creations, where formerly they had no disposition, inclination, or desire for the things of God. Now they are disposed and inclined toward God. In regeneration, God plants a desire for Himself in the new heart that otherwise would not be there. Let me read that again. The spirit recreates the human heart, quickening it from spiritual death to spiritual life. That's what I talked about in the previous episode. So let's now go back to RCE. Regenerate people are new creations where formerly they had no disposition, inclination, or desire for the things of God. Now they are disposed and inclined toward God in regeneration. God plants a desire for himself in the human heart that otherwise would not be there. They are disposed and inclined toward God. In regeneration, God plants a desire for himself in the human heart that otherwise would not be there. That is what it means to be a Christian. So now I'm going to review, or give a review, I should say, of what I covered in the previous uh episode, in which I shared or I took which I um presented scriptures that explain our need to be born again, our fallen nature, our dead nature, our spiritually dead nature that we inherit from Adam. Because when he sinned and Eve sinned, when they disobeyed God in the garden, they became spiritually dead and separated from God. And we inherit that through our physical birth. And that there is our need to be born again. And also because of the sins that we commit, because through that spiritual deadness and being separated from God, yet God holds us responsible for it. And so even people who are not born again are responsible for the sins that they commit. I mentioned that in the previous episode, and it really explains, Jeremiah 17.9 explains our fallen condition in a nutshell. And I'm going to read it first from the New American Standard Bible. Let me get to it.

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Okay, here we go, Jeremiah.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Jeremiah 17.9 in the New American Standard Bible. Okay, I'm Jeremiah 17 uh 46. Here we go. My fingers just, or I should say, the pages don't want to cooperate with my fingers this morning. This is how Jeremiah 17.9 reads in the New American Standard Bible, actually, my favorite translation, and I call it NASBY. The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. Who can understand it? Now I'm going to read that same verse from the Amplified Bible. The Amplified Bible is called the Amplified because English, the English language, is not as rich as Hebrew and Greek. Hebrew and Greek have verb tenses that are more emphatic than English. And words in Hebrew and Greek carry nuances with them that we miss in English. So the Amplified Bible attempts to enrich what we read in our Bibles that are other than the Amplified Bible, like the Nasby Bible and the NIV and so forth, to give us a more deeper understanding of what we're reading and what was meant in the original Hebrew and Greek text. So let me read it. Jeremiah 17, 9 in the Amplified. The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly perverse and corrupt and severely mortally sick. Who can know it? Perceive, understand, be acquainted with his own heart and mind. Right there it's saying, well, you know, if you're saying, I'm just going to do what my heart wants me to do, I think you better be careful. Because the Amplified adds, um, who can know it? Perceive, understand, be acquainted with his own heart and mind. Proverbs 14, 12 tells us that there is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is death. Now, you know, God doesn't want us to live in terror, that the choices that we make are gonna necessarily hurt us. I mean, what we eat, well, that could hurt us if we're eating the wrong things. You know, making our choice to be married, to whom we're gonna marry, our career, and so forth. That is referred to as God's common grace. Not that grace is common, but that he bestows grace, his mercy, even on people who reject him and are not born again. And we were made with a will, a free will that could make choices. And I explained in the previous episode that our free will, that in which our will that was originally made by God, is darkened, it's imprisoned in our fallen nature. Now we can make choices about life, and even those can be bad, wrong choices, but we are incapable of choosing God because we are spiritually dead, and our spiritually dead will is incapable of choosing God and even believing in God with a faith that will save us. If you haven't checked out that episode, please do. You may want to stop right now and go uh go to it and then come back. So this is what Chris Lingard says in his book, The Enemy Within, about the Jeremiah 17, 9 kind of heart. The book is the enemy within, straight talk about the power and defeat of sin. Chris Lingard, this is what he says. The best way to describe the heart is to say, Oh, let me let me back up. I'm sorry, I left something really important. I left out something really important. The heart is the interior of where we live. It's not our heart that that circulates blood through our system. It's the center, the interior of where we live, our soul, our intellect, our mind, our will, our affections. And that is all of our soul, our soul was corrupted by inheriting Adam's sin nature. It became darkened. Rather than being under the influence and of God, before we're born again, we're under the influence of our fallen nature and our sinful desires that pit themselves against God's laws, moral laws, and his creation ordinances of gender, sexuality, and marriage. The choices that we make before we're born again, many of them are made there from corrupt desires that are sinful desires, and we follow them and we sin. The Bible says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. So those desires that are in us before we're born again, in our fallen nature, are the impetus, the the reasons why we make choices. So there's really no such thing as a free will. There's a will that is able to choose, but our will is is activated by our choices, our feelings, and what we want to do. And they can be good feelings and they can be bad feelings. So I I forgive me, I I somehow left it out, but there, well, anyway, I made up for it. So this is what Chris Lundard says. The best way to describe the heart, our interior, is to say it compromises our thoughts, plans, judgments, and discernment, the mind, our choices and actions, the will, our longings, desires, revulsions, imagination, inclinations, and feelings, the affections, our sense of right and wrong, which approves or condemns our mind, will, and affections, the conscience. I left that out too. All of these are unsearchable and deceitful above all things. And Proverbs 14, 12. There is a way that seems right to the man, to a man, but the end thereof is death. Our inner desires that have been corrupted by original sin in the sense that those desires are under the influence of our fallen nature and lead us into sinning against Almighty God. And Chris explains it very, very well. I need to be born again, I should say. And he's speaking to a religious leader. I'm actually the most prominent religious leader in Israel of that day. His name was Nicodemus. And Nicodemus came to Jesus by night because, well, he was a member of the sect called the Pharisees. They were the religious leaders of the day. And Nicodemus was the religious leader of the day. Jesus addressed him as that. So he he knew that the Pharisees hated Jesus because Jesus confronted them on their hypocrisy and their self-righteousness, even calling them whitewashed tombs and vipers. And so he came by night, you know, realizing he didn't want to, he didn't want his contemporaries to find out about it. He had been in big trouble. So he comes to Jesus and he says, you know, I'll just read it to you. Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these things that you do unless God is with them. Jesus answered and said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Some translations say, enter, same thing. Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born again, can he? And be born, can he? Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and 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. So what Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, Nicodemus, you were born physically, obviously, and you're a religious man, but that's not going to get you into heaven. You need to be born again. You need a second birth, you need to be regenerated. Now, that scripture where Jesus said you must be born of the water and the spirit has several nuances to it. First of all, Jesus explained one of the nuances when he said, uh, that he said, he well, let me let me go back to verse 5. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the spirit is spirit. And he didn't say water in the flesh, which a lot of times, I know I'm sorry, let me go back. I'm I'm I'm rushing through this because I get excited about it. I'm sorry and I apologize. I need to slow down. Verse 5 Truly truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water in the spirit. Well, he goes on in the next verse to explain the water. Actually, there are two not nuances to his referring to water. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. I believe that's the first nuance. We are basically water birth. Let me back up again. We are basically, I think it's 65%, we are uh 65% or more comprised of water. And semen, which is a blood product, is is made of water, also because blood is also a water product. But then we read in Ephesians 5.26, he writes that the people who are born again, the church, he's speaking to the church in Ephesians, the believers, the born-again believers, there, that they've been washed by the water of the Word. So there is a cleansing agent in itself. The word itself has a cleansing agent, it waters us. So we have to be born of the flesh, that water, but we also need to be born of the water of the word, the cleansing agent of the word. And the word is then a marriage to be cleansed of the water of the word is is a marriage between the written word of God and the Holy Spirit. Two are needed. We need the Holy Spirit and the written word to wash us, and then uh in to wash us, to to bring us in to what it means to be born again. And then let me read this again. I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. So again, I I've shared the two nuances, the two truths, I should say, about being born of water, of the flesh and of the water of the word. And now I want to look at scriptures that tell us or that that explain, that speak to us of the experience of being born again. I'm gonna turn to the book of Romans and my Bible, page 155. Here we go. Oh, almost there. And I'm speaking, I'm reading, I should say, from the New American Standard Bible. I'm sorry, I got my air conditioning on, and I'm not as young as what I used to be. You know, I think that uh uh my fingers aren't moving like I wish they would. Okay, I apologize to the pages in of my Bible. Anyway, um Romans 10 10, let me check that out again. Romans 10, 10 speaks about the process of, or I should say, what happens when we are being born again. It says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart, the interior of where you live, where we live, our soul, and not just with our mind. I believed in Jesus with my mind for years, but I wasn't born again. And which meant that that I was not in the kingdom of God until I was born again. It's possible to believe in Jesus and to believe in the in the scriptures and not be born again and go to hell. Unfortunately, hell is filled with a lot of people who had an intellectual knowledge of Jesus, who believed in Jesus, but it was with their mind and not from their heart, from their interior. And the Holy Spirit is the one who speaks to the interior of where we live, so that we become responsive to Jesus Christ as our Savior, where we call on Him to be our Savior, where we believe with our heart and not just merely with our mind. Let me read this again that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart, so there is that that combination of believing with our heart and confessing with our mouth. The day that I was born again, I didn't even know what happened to me. But I called a friend of mine and I said, I've just been saved. I didn't know the word born again, but I knew that something amazing happened to me. And that was quite phenomenal because I was raised as a Catholic, and the word saved is not a part of the Catholic language. Okay. So anyway, I mean I was confessing with my mouth what had happened in my heart. There it is again that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Yes. It's a it's the expression of what is happening inside of us. Here it is. But with the heart, a person believes, the interior of where we live, resulting in righteousness, which means that we receive by grace that we're forgiven, that we are we stand before Almighty God the Father as forgiven in Jesus Christ. We are made righteous in him as if we had never sinned, because of his atoning work on the cross and through his blood. And with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. Let's also look at um, let me see. There's another verse that I want to go to here. Oh, here it is, verse 13. I'm sorry, it's right underneath. Uh just a couple verses uh following what I just read. If you would see my desk, you know, I I am not an unorganized person, but I'm looking at this desk. I've made so many notes in trying to before I um uh recorded this episode. I and I started over several times, to be honest with you. It just didn't sound right, and I couldn't get going with it. And so I I should have cleared off my desk before I began, but I didn't. So, anyways, so pardon me if I'm if I sound a little scattered. Well, my desk is, but so let me keep us right on track. Verse 13 for whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved. There it is, or whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.

unknown 24:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

So what does that mean? Well, I'm gonna go back to the third chapter of John. And I'm going to go, not the third chapter. Yes, I am going to go back to John 3. But first, I'm going to go back to John the first chapter. The first chapter of John, the verses 12 through 13. Let me get there.

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And uh okay, almost there. There we go.

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And I'm going to start reading um in verse, verse six, and it talks about John the Baptist. There came a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify about the light so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. There was the true light, the true light, which coming into the world enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. That's because he's talking about people at that time. And us before we're born again. We didn't know him because we were spiritually dead. We were unable to know him without the Holy Spirit, in the sense of who he was and is the Lord Jesus Christ. He came to his own, and those who were who were his own did not receive him. They crucified him. But as many as received him, yes, there were those who did receive him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, children of God to those who believe in his name, who were not born who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. I used to think that we're all God's children. Well, in a way we are. We're created by him. But when we were in Adam, we were his enemies. The Bible teaches that. The very core of who we were at that time rebelled against God. And I talked about that in the previous episode. We were his enemies. We were at enity against God. We were his creation, his creatures, but we were not his children. And I'm going to explain in the in the next episode that when we are born again, we are adopted into God's family. So I'm going to read that verse from oops, I just moved my mic. Hope I didn't uh uh whatever. I I got it back on on Q now. Um or I should say so it's not forcing or into my chest. And now let me get back to my mouth. You know, uh I'm kind of a novice at this. I've been doing this now. I have another couple other or one other podcast, but uh I'll maybe tell you about that later. I don't know. But right now I want to focus on this, and I'm thinking about doing a third uh podcast. So I'm still kind of new at this, um, and getting used to it and getting, you know, not so much organized, but just kind of navigating through all that I want to say. And like if you've read, or if you know, uh if you if you went to Spotify, you'll see I've I've never been to seminary. I don't have that pedigree. I'm sharing out of my journey in life from what I've been taught and what I have learned on my own in seeking God. Uh so let's read uh I'm gonna read John uh John 1 uh 12. Uh yeah, John 112. I'll start there. But to as many as did receive and welcome him, he gave the authority, the power, privilege, right to become the children of God. There's the amplified again, just giving these nuances that we miss in English. I mean, read it again. But to as many as did receive and welcome him, he gave the authority, power, privilege, right to become the children of God. That is to those who believe in, adhere to, trust in, and rely on his name. Hold on down, think about that for a minute. Who owe their birth neither to blood nor to the will of the flesh, that is of physical impulse, nor to the will of man, that of a natural father, but to God. They are born of God. To be born again is to be born of God. We're created by God, and we are when we are being formed, I should say we are created by God in a physical sense, and so he is in that respect our father, perhaps more our creator, but then we become his children, he becomes our father when we are born again. It's just beautiful to me that we're adopted from our from our sinful nature, from our nature that rebelled against him. We were his enemies, and now we are adopted by him, and he is our father. No other religion offers that, not even close, not even close. And I'm going to read to you from Romans 8:15 about a born-again believer's adoption by God. For the spirit which you have now received, that is the Holy Spirit that we receive when we're born again. Not a spirit is not a spirit of slavery to put you once in bondage to fear. I don't know about you, but before I was born again, I was afraid of God. I mean, I didn't like to even think about him because I I was, I just thought he was out to get me, so to speak. You know, and maybe it was more in my subconscious, maybe, but whatever. When I ever I heard about the end of the world, I was terrified. And dying, I you know, I wouldn't even think about that. It terrified me. So let me read this again. For the spirit which you have now received is not a spirit of slavery, to put you once more in bondage to fear, and also to be under the influence of our Adamic nature. We're freed from that. But you have received the spirit of adoption, the spirit producing sonship, and that is all inclusive for male and female, in the bliss, in the bliss of which we cry, Abba Father. That's how this reads in the amplified Bible. So beautiful. We can't, we don't cry Abba Father. We can say he's God, whatever, but when we're born again, something just comes from it comes from in our interior, from the Holy Spirit. And when I say Father, I know that it's coming from inside of me. I had the opportunity to lead my dad to the Lord. He had had he had a slight uh heart attack, and uh while he was in intensive care, he prayed with me to receive Christ, just like I read to you from uh John, the first uh chapter of John. And there were definite changes in his life. And but I just prayed one time. I said, God, I need to know that my dad really is in the kingdom. And we didn't pray a lot. We never prayed, I should say, when I was growing up, although we were Catholics, except from going to church, we lived like atheists the rest of the week. And Jesus' name was uh was a curse word, never one that was spoken with with reverence. And so we we were having dinner, family dinner, and my dad, after he prayed to receive Christ, he began to pray before meals once in a while. Not all the time, but he did. But it was a standard prayer. I think it went like, Bless us the Lord, and these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord. Amen. A nice prayer. But this time when he prayed, he said, Father, it came from the interior of my dad's soul. I said, He's in, he's in the kingdom, done deal. Don't have to worry about that anymore. My mind, my dad went to be with the Lord about almost 40 years ago. Actually, well, actually, it's 41 years ago, and my mom died eight months later. I don't know if she was in the kingdom, but one day she came down from up from being upstairs and she said, I've just invited Christ into my life to make me a better person. There was little evidence in it of it. But if that was being born again, well, then my mom is in heaven with dad. Wow, powerful. God is powerful. So I I've shared those scriptures that uh that that are an expression of what's happening inside of us when we are born again. Now I want to go back to John 3. And I'm going to read it this time. Well, no, I'm gonna read from both translations, uh, from the Amplified and the New American Standard Bible. Let me go back there to John 3. And I'm gonna start with verse 16. Probably the best, most understood, or I should say expressed, the most uh known scripture in the New Testament, and probably the most endeared and loved. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. Now, that word belief in Greek, and I hope I'm pronouncing it correctly, is pistioho, p-i-s-s-t-y-o-o-o-h. Now, belief, believing, believed, believes, in English carries more of a mental ascent to what we believe. And that's how I believed in Jesus. I believed in Jesus like I believed in Abraham Lincoln. He lived, but he didn't have an impact on my life. I knew Jesus was going to have an impact on my life when I died as my judge, but I had no idea that he could impact my life now by being born again. So let me read that, let me read that word again. Let me let me spell it. P-I-S-S-T-Y-O-O-O-H. P-T-O-O. It carries uh a verb connotation with it, unlike the English word believe. It means to act on, to to carry out the belief. And I like to give the um the uh the an explanation, an example, I should say, of believing with our mind and believing according to pistiyoho. Pistiyo, there we go, to which carries a verb sense with it. You could be approaching an old rickety bridge that that would that takes you over a deep, dangerous ravine. And for years that bridge has been there, no problems. It's a trusted bridge. Well, you know, you can know that in your brain, in your mind. But when you drive across it, you are putting your faith into that bridge that is going to get you to the other side. That is the difference between believing with the mind and believing with saving faith. Well, in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, it says clearly, Paul writes, that we are saved by grace through faith, a gift, not of ourselves, so that anyone would brag or boast about it. Look what I've done. Look at me. I'm this wonderful Christian. No, no, no, no, no. No, that would be boasting. We are saved by grace through faith, a gift from because of the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross and in his resurrection, nothing else. Now I'm going to read John 3.16 from the Amplified, which really carries the connotation of the Greek word to believe. Here we go. For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that he even gave up his only begotten unique son, so that whoever believes in, trusts in, clings to, and relies on him shall not perish, come to destruction, be lost, but have eternal, everlasting life. That's the saving faith that comes from the Holy Spirit. That was when you were in a car and you decided to trust in, cling to, and rely on that rickety old bridge to get you to the other side, and you did it. You drove across it. That saving faith that comes from the Holy Spirit. So beautiful. Now, I had, like I said, I have quoted that verse. I've said that verse probably more than any other verse in the Bible. I've shared the gospel with people, I've seen people receive Christ. And it's also, it's also been when I also use that verse in sharing the gospel, because it is the gospel in a nutshell. But it wasn't until, I don't know, maybe a couple months ago, I ordered a new American Standard Bible, more like maybe four months ago. And it came with the red letter edition. The as the red letter edition, the words of Jesus are written in red to highlight them. And for the first time, I realized that John 316 was Jesus speaking to Nicodemus because it's in it's in the context. And then he explains it. You have to believe in him. But now with an intellectual belief, to be born again is to cling to, trust and rely on Jesus as our Savior. And also, um, right after, along with Jesus telling Nicodemus that he must be born again, and this is what he said. Um, as this is in verse 14, John 3:14, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of God be lifted up.

unknown 41:03

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

And what happened? Well, why why was this going on? The the the the Israelites had been involved in disgusting, abominable sins, sexuality, sexual sins, idolatry, and God said, I'm enough. I'm done with this. It's enough. And what happened? In his discipline and in his wrath, in his justice, he sent fiery serpents into the Israelite camp, and they bit people and they began dying. And so God told Moses intercede for the people and said, please stop this. And the Lord told Moses, make a serpent, a bronzed serpent on a pole, and if anyone will look to that serpent, they will be healed. Jesus is referring to himself as that serpent. Wow. Amazing to me. And let me get my papers here correctly. A little of this little bit discombobulated. Uh no. Okay, I'm I'm I'm okay now. So Jesus is saying that to be born again is to look to him. Did they do anything? Did those Jews or those Israelites, I should say, do anything to be born again? Did they change their lives? They looked to the serpent and they were healed. To look to Jesus is how is what it means to be born again. Now I'm going to take you to a scripture, another scripture in John 6.40, which explains that being born again is to look to Jesus. The Holy Spirit gives us the faith. The Holy Spirit pre uh prompts us to do this. I'm gonna read that too. John 6.40. I mean, I'm almost there.

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John 6.40. This is what it is there again.

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I'm sorry. My fingers are sticking together. John 640. This is what Jesus says here. Not my fingers, my pages. My uh the pages are sticking to my fingers. I'm sorry. For this is what Jesus said in in John six forty. For this is the will of my Father that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in him will have eternal life. And I myself will raise him off on the last day.

unknown 44:00

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 44:02

Wow. Think about that again. Or think about now the serpent looking to the serpent to be healed. Now Jesus said, not only if we believe in him, he said, and we read it again. For this is the will of my Father that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in him, who beholds the Son and believes in him, will have eternal life. And I myself will raise him up on the last day. Well, how can we behold Jesus? He's not here on earth. Jesus is talking about our spiritual eyes being opened, that he is our savior and Lord.

unknown 44:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

It reminded me of my own born-again experience. I didn't even know it was happening to me. I just knew that I was being convicted of my sin. For the first time in my life, I knew that I had offended a holy God. And my eyes, my spiritual eyes were opened. I knew Jesus died for the world, but I, my inner man, my heart, the interior of where I live, became enlightened. I was being born again. I was being regenerated. And that means I was being made alive from spiritual death. And with that came my spiritual eyes being open, that Jesus Christ is my Savior and my Lord. That's what it means to be born again. Just as the Israelites looked to the serpent in the wilderness, that bronzed serpent. When our spiritual eyes are open, we look to Jesus. We have the ability to look to Jesus and seeing him as our Savior. And it also comes with a knowledge that we have sinned against the Holy God and that we deserve hell. I knew that the day that I was being born again. But what else was happening? This love was being poured into me. I felt it and coming from me. It was the Holy Spirit. The love of God was being poured into me. And we read about that. And I can't remember the exact scripture, but Paul talked about that. That the love of God is poured into us while we're being born again. The love of God is being poured into us. And also this new person, this new, renewed, born-again, regenerated person, the new interior of where we live, is also being now pouring forth the love that was being poured into us back to Jesus. For the first time in my life, I fell in love with Jesus and I know it. I know it. I mean, I was drenched in my tears. But they were tears of both sorrow for what I how I had sinned against him and joy because I knew I was being forgiven. Something was happening in me that I had never experienced before. And when I that night I went to see this girl that I was dating, and she wouldn't let me in the screen door. She said, What happened to you? You look different. You scare me. Well, I didn't know how to explain it to her, but I said, Jesus came into my room about two hours ago. That's all I knew that I could say. And for weeks afterward, I was a member of a of a of a uh fraternity at the University of Toledo. We were uh we were known, we were the animal house. We were known for being thrown off campus for drinking too much. And so when I met with my buddies, my fraternity brothers, I got saved in August of 1966, when I went back to school and I went to visit them, you know, back to the house, or we had our own little table at this union union. They didn't, they knew I was different. I didn't have to say anything, they sensed it. That's what it means to be born again, a new person in Jesus Christ.

unknown 48:40

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 48:42

I never heard that before in church. Never. Never. But praise God, my sister became a Christian, was born again before, about six months before I. And she led me to the Lord Jesus Christ. My sister, my dear sister Rachel, went to be with the Lord in uh uh 1981. Wow, a long time ago. And uh what 45 years ago, is that right? Yeah, and she was only 44, she died of brain tumors, but boy, you know, she's in heaven today, and I'm sure she is rejoicing that she became a Christian and that through her I too became a Christian. I was born again. Now, let me share something to you also. Remember, I said that the term born again can also, or that the word again again can mean again or from above. A nothing. A-N-O-T-H-E-N. And that a nothing, that word being born from above speaks to looking to Jesus. Born again can be looking horizontally rather than vertically. Now let me explain this. I'm gonna delve into that again, but we are born again through the Word of God, and Paul talked about that in the book of Romans. He says in Romans 10, 17 that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. So what I'm going to share with you now is the difference between a horizontal believing in Jesus and even coming to Jesus from a horizontal perspective and coming to Jesus from a vertical perspective, looking to Him, that we are coming to Him because He is going to do something from above that we can't do. A horizontal perspective is grounded in a prayer that we pray, the sinner's prayer. I'm gonna talk about that too. But to be preaching the word of Christ, to be uh hearing the word of Christ, we have to know what Jesus said, and throughout scriptures, we find out that Jesus talked about repentance, which is oftentimes missing in today's American church in sharing the gospel. Without repentance, the gospel is is incomplete. We can say that Jesus died for our sins, he wants us to be forgiven, but with and he will forgive us and give us eternal life. But without repentance, we fall short of the words of Christ and the faith that is needed for the Holy Spirit to regenerate us, to give us saving faith. Now I'm going to read right from scripture, uh, from scriptures, I should say, where Jesus is talking about repentance and also in the book of Acts. Mark 1:15. This is John the Baptist. John the Baptist preached repentance, and after he was taken into custody and uh beheaded, when Jesus found that out, this is what Jesus said. The time was fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel. Jesus, so to speak, took over for John. And I think he was preaching before John John was beheaded. Um, I'm not clear on that, but I think he did because I think John the Baptist, um uh his disciples said that Jesus' disciples were baptizing. So that there must have been some repentance in there. But now Jesus, I mean had to be, but Jesus now exclusively took over preaching repentance. And because the time was fulfilled, John had served what he was destined to serve, and now he was gone, and now Jesus was at and he was baptized by John, which which began Jesus' ministry on earth. The Holy Spirit descended on him, on Jesus. In Luke 5.32, Jesus says, I have come not to call the righteous, but sinners to be born again. Well, that's true too. But he he didn't get to the born-again part yet. He said, I have come to call the righteous, not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Without repentance, there is no born again, there is no regeneration, there is no born from above. Luke 13, 3. Jesus refers to the Galilean, to the Galileans that Pilate killed. But that was tone, that was left for me to say. Jesus referred to the Galileans that were killed by Pilate. He said, This is what Jesus said, and he's speaking to a crowd, unless you repent, you will likewise perish. And then Luke 24. This is what he said. The Christ would suffer and on the third day rise again from the dead to preach repentance to all the nations, beginning first in Jerusalem. Born again in repentance, you can't separate them. You can't repent, you can't take repentance out of the gospel, and and so call it the gospel. And then in Acts 3.19, we read. Let me turn to it.

SPEAKER_00 55:43

Acts 3.19, almost there. Yeah, my fingers are they doing a little better here? Uh no, they're still stuck. Okay, Acts 3.19. Oh, I went past it. No wonder. Acts 3.19.

SPEAKER_01 56:00

I have my quiet time with the Lord in the morning. Four o'clock. I've always been a morning person, but now that I'm retired, I I just love that early morning time. It just sets me on the right track and and just worshiping God. And, you know, nothing else is happening. Well, I live in Chicago. I sometimes I can hear the L train, which is a block away, and even and sirens, but I consider them the lullaby of Chicago. They don't even bother me anymore. So Acts 3, 13, Peter talking. So he he's telling them. Let me go back. Um, he's telling them, and let's go back to 13. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus, the one whom you delivered and disowned in the presence of Pilate when he had decided to release him. Well, God, the Father, sent Jesus to earth, but he also holds us responsible for rejecting him. We we see that right here in this verse. But you disowned, here we go, you disowned the holy and righteous one and asked for a murderer to be granted to you and put to death the prince of life, the one whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses. And on the basis of faith in his name, it is the name of Jesus which has strengthened the man whom you see and know. Peter and H had prayed for a man, I think it was John with them, I'm not sure, but the man was healed. So that's who he's referring to. The name of Jesus, which has strengthened this man whom you see and know, and the faith which comes through him, come through Jesus, has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all. Well, it sounds like he was in Georgia, but he wasn't. And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance just as the your rulers did also. Grace. Wow. Confronting, condemning, and now grace. You acted in ignorance just as your rulers did also. But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of the prophets, that his Christ, that his Christ would suffer, he has thus fulfilled. Have you ever read Isaiah 53? Please go to the Old Testament, Isaiah 53. You'll think that you're reading something from the Gospels, the prophecy about Jesus. And therefore, repent and return. In other words, repent and return to God, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. Unboy when I was born again, and I'm sure you too, I was refreshed in the presence of God. When you're born again, it's just not a prayer, it's an experience, it's a one-to-one encounter with the living Jesus Christ. It is an experience. Some people, it's quiet. Some people, mine was like an atomic bomb blast. Some people are born again when they're little and they don't, when they're young and they don't remember. But there's evidences that we're born again that prove that we're born again. And I'm gonna do an episode on that too. So he's right here, Peter is saying, repent. And then we read in Acts 17, verse 30. Turn to that. That's just a few pages away and getting there. Okay, almost there. Okay, yay, I made it. 1730. Now this is Paul. Paul is in Greece, and he is standing in the Aero, the Areopagus, I believe that's how you say it, or the Aropagus, perhaps. And he's speaking to the men there. They would go, the group of men, and they would go there and they would just talk about things. They talk about different ideas. They were always looking for something new. So there's Paul. And this is what he says. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, he saw all these idols. And it says in an earlier scripture that it hurt him, it grieved him. He said, I also found an altar with this inscription to an unknown God. Brilliant. Brilliant. How the Holy Spirit had make pointed that out to Paul. Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, how do you like that one? Talk about, you know, now we get the gospel of Nice. We can't offend people, we can't tell them we're a sinner. Well, that's keeping people in going to hell. Well, look at what Paul said. Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you, the God who made the world and all things in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. He was looking at these pagan temples, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all people life and breath and all things. And he made them from one man every nation. And he made, I'm sorry, and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live all to live on all the face of the earth, that was Adam. Let me read that again. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, that was Adam, having determined their boundaries, having determined, yes, uh start again. This is wordy, and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of the and the boundaries of their habitation, so much for open borders that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each of us. Then he goes on to say in verse 30, therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God's grace, God is now declaring to men that all people have reware should repent. Wow. And what does he mean? Who's all people? Atheists, agnostics, there's really no such thing. An atheist or an agnostic is just suppressing the the knowledge of God which is uh expressed, which is made evident in creation, a look in the mirror. To say that you're an atheist or an agnostic is to look in the mirror and deny yourself. It's a repression, a suppression, I should say, of also the inner knowledge that God has placed in every man. That's where paganism comes from. It's a repression, it's a denying of who God really is. It's turning to the creature, worshiping man and false images, false gods. And that comes from our fallen nature. Our fallen nature does not like God. It hates God, it wants to be God, and so did you and I before we were born again. Wow, let me read that again. Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent. Now there's two types of repentance. Well, it's really not repentance, but let me use Judas as an example. Judas greatly remorsed, it was in great remorse that he had betrayed Jesus. He felt terrible. It said that he he was, you know, he he re he regretted, but it wasn't the repentance that God talks about, the repentance, and I'll read it to you, that leads to life. Instead, he went out and he hung himself. You know, we can feel sorry for our sins. When I was a Catholic, and I would go to confession, I would, you know, tell the priest what I did, and then I was given a few prayers to pray to kind of as if Jesus' death on the cross wasn't good enough. That was my penance. And but there was nothing about repentance. And I I re I now realize that I walked into a confessional booth on my way to hell, and I walked out on my way to hell because I wasn't born again, and plus I had never repented, so that I could be born again, or in the in during the process of being born again. So he went out. Uh Judas hung himself. That is an example of human repentance, which is really, you know, I guess you could say it's more regret and feeling sorry that we have done something wrong. Now, the Bible talks about that there is a God kind of repentance. There's sorrow involved. When I was born. Again, my heart felt like it was being ripped in two that I had offended a holy God. Repentance does that. I felt it at the core of my inner being. Every person who's born again is going to feel that. Maybe, maybe I did, maybe it's because I was such a sinner, I needed to feel it more. I don't know. But if you're born again, you know you sensed that within the very inner being of your soul. Now, the godly kind of repentance, it's in 2 Corinthians 7-11. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God, it's the will that we should repent, produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation. But the sorrow of the world produces death. When we repent by through the power of the Holy Spirit, there's no regret. Yet we know that what we've done is wrong, but we know that we're forgiven. We know that we're forgiven, and it leads to salvation in Jesus Christ. If repentance is not a part of the gospel, it could result in what I'm going to talk about next. The sinner's prayer. And horizontal, so to speak, conversion rather than vertical conversion, which means to be born from above. Now, the Greek word is another, A-N-O-T-H-E-N. And it can be translated again and also above. Now let me turn to the Amplified Bible. And it explains the difference. I already did. It talks about the difference between a horizontal belief and a vertical belief that we trust in, cling to, and rely on Jesus. And I read in John 6 40. It's our eyes are open. We're beholding Jesus as our Savior. That is the vertical of being born from above. The horizontal is praying the sinner's prayer without the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. It's praying with our spiritual eyes closed. We're only seeing Jesus as the Savior. And we kind of understand that we want him to be our Savior, but our choice is not involved. We can't choose him, I should say, until our spiritual eyes are open and our dead will is made alive so that we can choose or to believe in him. We can't do it. Let me read to you from Romans 8. This is taking longer than I thought, but this is worth it. More than worth it. It's eternally worth it. So let me turn to Romans 8. Okay, Romans 8.5. It says, for those who are according to the flesh, who are they? They're people that are still in Adam. They're living controlled by the flesh or acting according to the desires of the flesh. For those who are according to the flesh and are controlled, there it is, by its unholy desires, set their minds on and pursue those things which gratify the flesh. But those who are according to the spirit, those who are born again, and are controlled by the desires of the spirit, set their minds on and seek those things which gratify the Holy Spirit. That's people who are born again. And then he goes on to say, The mind, the mind of the flesh, which, yeah, now the mind of the flesh, which is a sense and reason without the Holy Spirit, there's the amplified. Now the mind of the flesh, which is sense and reason without the Holy Spirit, Proverbs 14, 12. What seems right to a man may end up death, manned in death. Let me go on. I mean, let me read that again. Now the mind of the flesh, which is sense and reason without without the Holy Spirit, is death. You're living in death, spiritual death. Death that compromises all the miseries arising from sin, both here and hereafter. But the mind of the Holy Spirit is life and so and soul peace both now and forever. But the mind of the Holy Spirit, okay, when we set our mind on the Holy Spirit, the description that says we have the mind of Christ, we receive the peace of the Holy Spirit. But the mind of the flesh, with its carnal thoughts and purposes, is hostile to God. For it does not submit itself to God's laws. Indeed, it cannot. So then those who are living the life of the flesh, catering to the appetites and impulses of their carnal nature, cannot please or satisfy God or be acceptable to him. For it is impossible, it is impossible to do it. We could not please God in our flesh because we were his enemies. And that's why salvation is by grace. We can never be good enough. Our flesh is too corrupted. No other religion teaches that. Every other religion is you gotta be good enough to be accepted by God. We'll do an episode on that too. It's called sanctification. So I'm really concerned if the the if faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ and repentance, I just read to you from the scriptures from the Bible, what Jesus, all the scriptures that Jesus referred to in repentance. And so if repentance is missing in the gospel, we're gonna have horizontal prayers. We're gonna have people going to invite Jesus in their life to be a better person. Yeah, to forgive them. But that could be a self-centered type of forgiveness. John Owen in his book, Puritan John Owen, 300 years ago, in the in his book, The Mortification of Sin, said if we go and confess to God and confess our sins because of what it does to us, and yes, and because we don't want to go to hell, that's self-centeredness. We go to God and confess our sin because we sinned against him. And I pointed that out in the in the in the in the episode before this one. I mentioned uh Isaiah, uh, excuse me, Psalm 51, where uh David is repenting of his sin of a of committing adultery with Bathsheba and having her son, her, excuse me, her husband murdered. I'm getting too excited about this because this really, really excites me, because it's so important that we know this. I'm sorry, I need to slow down. I just, you know, forgive me, I don't want to ramble. So slow down, Dennis. I mentioned in the previous episode, there we go, that in uh Psalm 51, David confessed his sin directly to God, that he had committed adultery with Bathsheba and had it set up that her husband was murdered to make it look like he was the father. And what did he say? David said, Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is wicked in your sight. R.C. Sproul, I heard him say one time, sin, when we commit a sin, is cosmic treason against God. His moral laws, his creation ordinances of gender, sexuality, and marriage, because his moral laws are an extension of his purity, of who he is. He didn't think one day, hey, Gabriel, angel, come over here. I'm gonna uh uh create man in my image. And I have to come up some ways that I keep them in mind. I have to think about that. No, no, no. His laws and his moral laws and his creation ordinances are a reflection of who God is, his holiness. So when we break his laws, we sin against him. I'm gonna end with this. It's long, a minute fifteen. I pray that this has blessed you, and I pray that if you are not born again, take what I've shared, pray about it. And maybe you're in a church that is not teaching what it means to be born again. Ask the Lord. I can't give you the name of a church, I wouldn't do that. Ask the Lord. You'd say, Lord, you know, I'm I'm I'm not born again yet, but in your mercy, you hear me? Lead me to a church where I can really get this to understand it. And there's so much online too. Go to YouTube. Anything by um banner of truth will bless you. It's deep, it's confrontive, but it's biblical truth. Go on to YouTube and just enter born again. I received some of my information, especially about the word another, from a video on YouTube that I just put in born again and it popped up. Do that. They're short. I forgot about that one. It's it's like less than a half an hour. Half of this of this episode. So I want to end the prayer. I want to ask the Lord to bless you, to encourage you. And if you are questioning that you're born again, make it sure. Paul talked about that, making our election sure. Go to the Lord and say, Lord, I'm calling on you. I know my sin, I repent of my sin. I don't want it. I don't want to live like I used to live. Jesus saved me. It's simple as that. If you believe that he raised from the dead, that he rose from the dead, if you go to him believing that he was risen from the dead, that he's Lord. And this is another thing I've heard, which is absolutely crazy. I've just made Jesus the Lord of my life. No, you didn't. You can't make Jesus Lord of anything. You can't make Jesus anything. He already is Lord of all. That's another, uh, another, what's the word, uh, lessening of the gospel, weakening of the gospel. Come and make Jesus Lord of your life. No, no, no. I've heard that in altar calls. People, you know, that the pastor or the evangelist calling people to make to come to Jesus and make him the Lord of their lives. He already is the Lord. The Old Testament teaches, I can't remember the exact scripture, maybe Ezekiel, I'm not sure, somewhere in there. That God, that that all souls belong to God. He's Lord. He's the Lord of the souls in hell, he's the Lord of the souls on earth who are saved and are not saved, and he's the Lord of the souls in heaven, he's the Lord of everything, everything. So you can't make him Lord. That's blasphemy. The only thing that we can do is go to him and confess him as Lord and give our lives to him. But we have to be careful of that. Because I attended a church where the pastor would say, Um, give your life to the Lord. And he would say, Jesus isn't looking for fans, he's looking for followers. Well, I had a friend who just she recoiled thinking about her need to be born again, yet she was active in a large denomination. I mean, really active. She was in charge of communion, and she was on uh committees when hiring a new pastor. Yet she said she just scorned the fact of being born again. She told me I don't need that. I'm more interested in solving and uh uh world hunger. Wow. Wow. Well, let me tell you something. Okay, I'm getting I'm long, but uh that's okay. I'm gonna tell you what Jesus said in John 3. Oh god, well, he didn't say it. Or maybe he did. Let me turn to it. Going way past time, I know. But well, this is important.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:32

John three.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:34

It's at the end of verse 36. He who believes in the Son of God has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son of God will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. Now catch, obey the Son. Scriptures teach that we're not saved by our works, by doing to earning salvation. So, what does it mean to obey the God? To obey the Son. It's the command that we have to be born again. That is not a suggestion, it is a command from Jesus Christ Himself. And we, when we refuse to be born again, we are disobeying the Son. And we will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. My friend, as I tried to, my friend in the past, as I tried to, she's in the past because she won't talk to me anymore. You know, I tried to plead with her, and that you're disobeying Jesus. And this pastor that I had several years ago, when he would say, Jesus doesn't want bands, he wants followers. I thought of my friend. She really believed that she was a follower of Jesus, yet she was disobeying him because she wasn't born again. And my pastor at that time I think about it now, is he going to be held accountable for that? I think he is. He left out being born again. You can't authentically follow Jesus Christ until you are born again. And if that's not being preached from the pulpit, that is that is heretical. That's heresy. You can't follow Jesus without being born again. And a lot of people think they are. They're following Jesus and they're on their way to hell because they have disobeyed Jesus in his command to be born again. If that's you, don't take that route. Get off that route. You can, you can be born again. You can go to Jesus and call on him in repentance, just as I've shared in this episode. So thank you. And I pray that this very serious episode will be taken to heart by all who listen to it. Thank you.