The Mystery and Necessity of Spiritual Rebirth

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. [00:00:07]

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. [00:01:45]

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. [00:02:35]

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. [00:03:10]

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. [00:04:50]

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?” [00:05:52]

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.” [00:07:13]

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.” [00:08:21]

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. [00:10:58]

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. [00:12:24]

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. [00:19:28]

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. [00:23:38]

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. [00:26:31]