Jesus Christ warned every man - "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." John 3:3
Jesus could have expounded the new birth in detail, but he didn't. Jesus revealed instead that the new birth must be experienced - "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. 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 every one that is born of the Spirit." John 3:7-8
With the single exception of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, there is no greater miracle than the new birth. In this age of seeking signs and wonders, the greatest miracle of all goes unnoticed and unsung. That's because the vast, vast majority of those who profess to be Christians have themselves never been born again, and they are on the verge of becoming mere puppets for the antichrist who is soon to come, for they will not in any wise be able to withstand the strong delusion that God is preparing to send on the entire world, so that all who are not born again will believe a lie.
Conversely, the Christian who is truly born again has experienced the very resurrection power of Jesus Christ, for the new birth is generated by the same Spirit in the same vein of power as the very resurrection of Jesus Christ himself. The Christian who is truly born again has met Jesus Christ through the miracle of the new birth. This statement is not a metaphor. If you are born again, you have experienced the resurrection power of Jesus Christ, and you have met Jesus Christ through the miracle of the new birth. There are no exceptions. "So is EVERY ONE that is born of the Spirit."
Are you born again? Have you experienced the new birth? You will not enter the kingdom of Jesus Christ except you be born again.
Dwight Moody made this prescient observation regarding the new birth - "The doctrine of the New Birth is the foundation of all our hopes for the world to come... My experience has been this--that if a man is unsound on this doctrine he will be unsound on almost every other fundamental doctrine in the Bible... To be born again is the greatest blessing that will ever come to us in this world." The Gateway Into The Kingdom
And John Bunyan offered this sobering remark - Wherefore it is said expressly, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. By this one word, down goes all carnal privilege of being born of flesh and blood, and of the will of man. Canst thou produce the birthright? But art thou sure thou canst? For it will little profit thee to think of the blessed kingdom of heaven, if thou wantest a birthright to give thee inheritance there... The birthright and the blessing go together; miss of one, and thou shalt never have the other!" The Strait Gate
Have you experienced the new birth?
Many professing Christians today are scared to death of the word "experience." This is due primarily to two factors -
First, "experiences" occurring within certain conclaves of Christianity today are nothing but counterfeit events which are being cloaked in New Testament terminology and thus palmed off on the undiscerning and the unsuspecting as true manifestations of the Holy Ghost. Some of these manifestations are merely human cleverness, some are merely emotional excitations, and some - and the number will increase as the day of the Lord draws near - are in fact genuine spiritual happenstances, albeit the power that drives and invokes these spiritual happenstances is not the Holy Ghost, but rather the unholy prince of the power of the air.
The second reason many professing Christians treat the word "experience" like the plague today is because these very Christians have themselves never had a true supernatural experience indited by the Holy Ghost, and thus it is impossible for them to comprehend and embrace the dynamics of it, for such an experience is completely foreign to them. In short, these very Christians have never been born again themselves.
Which is exactly what the Word of God predicted would be the case. The vast majority of those who profess to be Christians in these last days are not born again, and this is especially true of those who stand in the pulpits, for it is rare indeed to find a minister or a bible scholar today who has actually experienced the new birth. Such men are unregenerate and are therefore dead in their trespasses and sins, just like the rest of the world. Moreover, unless a man has himself been born again, it is impossible for him to convey the new birth to others. Certainly, an unregenerate man may have a mental acquaintance with the concept of the new birth, but that is all. Like Nicodemus, the unregenerate man -- no matter how brilliant or clever he is, no matter how pious or religious he is, no matter how vast and expansive his learning, no matter if his mind seems capable of unlocking deep mysteries -- the unregenerate man nevertheless can no more accurately convey the new birth to another human being than a skeleton can breathe. That is axiomatic.
Many professing Christians will never be born again simply because they refuse to admit that they are not born again. "When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Mark 2:17 Hell will swallow untold millions of those who are too proud to admit that they are not born again. And while pride is the root of this stubborn refusal, yet it is pride of a particularly malignant flavor, for Satan perpetrates no lies greater than those lies which he perpetrates through a man who is religious but unregenerate. Despite many outward displays of decency and morality and integrity, the unregenerate religious man is a scourge indeed. He may be a pastor; he may be a deacon; he may be a missionary; he may even be a great evangelist, preaching and teaching in the name of Jesus Christ -- yea, he may in fact appear as a most precious jewel in the eyes of all the world, of all who know of him or have heard story, but in God's eyes he is a tool of the devil, for few devices of Satan are more sinister than an unregenerate man who presumes to speak for God. "Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God." Luke 16:15
Let these words of E. M. Bounds sink down into your ears - "Preaching is to give life; it may kill... This letter-preaching has the truth. But even divine truth has no life-giving energy alone; it must be energized by the Spirit, with all God's forces at its back. Truth unquickened by God's Spirit deadens as much as - or more than - error. It may be the truth without admixture; but without the Spirit its shade and touch are deadly, its truth error, its light darkness." Power Through Prayer
One hour of preaching by an unregenerate pastor can do more damage to an unsaved soul than twenty years of carousing in bars and bistros. Even if what the unregenerate preacher says is doctrinally accurate, the words which issue from his mouth are enshrined in a tomb, energized by the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. His teaching may come forth with great volume and sincerity; his message may inspire awe; his utterance may be passionate, able to stir the blood of all within range of his voice; he may have the eloquence of ten thousand angels; his enticements and powers of persuasion may electrify crowds of immense proportions - nevertheless, even while invoking the name of Jesus, his words serve Satan, not God; his message brings death, not life; his passion leads to hell, not heaven.
Jesus Christ shuns the testimony of the unregenerate - "And devils also came out of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God. And he rebuking them suffered them not to speak: for they knew that he was Christ." Luke 4:41 Such testimony is an offense to the Lord of Glory, regardless of whether it comes from evil spirits or unregenerate flesh, for the Son of man will not have his unspotted faith mingled with devils.
Now, a word of caution here: the unregenerate man may verily call on the Lord Jesus to save and rescue him. Such testimony the Lord Jesus rejoices in. However, the hypocrite who is unregenerate and yet speaks as if he has an "inheritance of the saints in light;" this man is an abomination in the eyes of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Accordingly, if you are not born again - no matter your present status: pastor, preacher, professor, evangelist or town sinner; it matters not - drop to your knees and admit it to God, and cry out to Jesus for salvation, and purpose in your heart to not let pride keep you from honesty in this matter, for then you have good ground indeed for Jesus to hear you. Jesus will quicken all who call upon him in truth, as it is written - "The LORD is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth." Psalm 145:18
Confess and understand that you can do absolutely nothing of yourself to be born again. If you will go to heaven, you must be born from above, for it is written again - "Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, BUT OF GOD." John 1:13
Confess and understand therefore that salvation and the new birth is utterly beyond your own power. Confess and understand that this popular notion of "accepting" Jesus is preposterous and unbiblical. It is Jesus who does the accepting, not the other way around, and only the proud and the rebellious and the grossly ignorant in spiritual matters avow otherwise. If you are to be saved, you must come to Jesus on his terms, not your own; if you are to be saved, then it is Jesus who must accept you, just as he accepted Bartimaeus, just as he accepted the Syrophenician woman, just as he accepted so many others throughout the Gospels. As Martin Luther so rightly put it - "As long as a man is persuaded that he can make even the smallest contribution to his salvation, he remains self-confident and does not utterly despair of himself, and so is not humbled before God... Conversely, the man who is out of doubt that his destiny depends entirely on the will of God, despairs entirely of himself, chooses nothing for himself, but waits for God to work in him; and such a man is very near to grace for his salvation." Bondage Of The Will
If you will experience the new birth; if you will meet Jesus Christ personally through the experience of the new birth, you must be at the end of yourself. You must be abused of any notion whatsoever that you can do anything to obtain eternal life. You must be abused of any notion that the Lord of Glory will deal with you on your own terms, because he won't. You must know from the very depths of your own soul that all you can do is cry out to the Lord Jesus and ask him to have mercy on you, and to clothe you with his own righteousness, which he manifested when he dwelt among us and lived an utterly sinless life, thereby revealing to the world that he - and he alone - was qualified to "bare our sins in his own body on the tree." 1 Peter 2:24
Jesus Christ is the only man who ever has or ever will live a sinless life on this earth. Yea, even his angels he charged with folly, and even the heavens are not clean in his sight. The righteousness and the glory of Jesus Christ exceeds the purity of heaven itself, and his August majesty must be veiled before creation itself can even behold him, which is why it is written - "And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them." Revelation 20:11
He who sits on the Great White Throne is none other than Jesus Christ, the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, and it is he who will judge the quick and the dead in that great and terrible day. Angels, Archangels, Seraphim, and Cherubim will bow before him on that day; Satan will bow before him on that day; devils will bow before him on that day; kings and presidents, dictators and tyrants, princes and paupers, one and all - yea, every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father, on that great and terrible day. "For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son." John 5:22
Therefore, If you will be born again, it is Jesus Christ - and none other - to whom you must come, and before whom you must bow. If you will be born again, you must acknowledge that it is Jesus Christ - and none other - who by virtue of his resurrection wields the sceptre in the new birth. If you will be born again, you must see that it is Jesus Christ - and none other - who "liveth, and was dead; and, behold, is alive for evermore, Amen; and has the keys of hell and of death." Revelation 1:18
The acid test - especially in this day of pervasive false doctrine - is not the empty claims of the multitudes, who insist that they know Jesus. This is to miss the mark entirely. The acid test is not whether you know Jesus, but whether Jesus in fact knows you - "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I NEVER KNEW YOU: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." Matthew 7:22-23
Untold multitudes will stand at the gates of heaven, certain that they will gain entrance there. But alas, they are deceived, alas, they are deluded. They will not enter therein, even though they may have done many mighty works in the name of Jesus, believing for years that they had been justified by the blood of the Lamb, but it is only the wrath of the Lamb that they will now experience, for Jesus will consume them with the sword of his mouth when he says, "I NEVER KNEW YOU." Multitudes will arrive at the judgment seat expecting to be admitted to heaven, certain that heaven is their everlasting destiny, but they will leave with the lash of judgment upon their backs, weeping and gnashing their teeth, cast into outer darkness for all eternity, for they lack the birthright. The birthright and the blessing go together. They will discover, albeit too late, that their own faith was non-efficacious, that their own faith never produced that meeting with the risen Christ in the experience of the new birth. And thus they will not set foot in the kingdom of heaven, for they lack the birthright. They will seek to enter in, but they will not be able, for the birthright and the blessing cannot be separated. "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
Has Jesus Christ personally introduced himself to you? If you are born again, if you have experienced the new birth, Jesus Christ has verily introduced himself to you, and he has done so in an unmistakable supernatural way, with his unmistakable voice that resounds in the spirit of every man he regenerates, a voice which all who belong to him recognize with unfaltering certainty, for the new birth is a supernatural experience indited by the Holy Ghost, and all who are born again hear in their spirits the unmistakable voice of the Shepherd as he assures each and every one of his sheep that he knows them by name. There are no exceptions. "The sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers." John 10:3-5
One of the greatest of all heresies is that which permeates Christianity today, namely, that a man can somehow be born again without anything happening; that a man can somehow be born again without an undeniable supernatural experience within the spirit of the man himself. What a wicked lie this weak, false theology is. The new birth is a supernatural experience. Yet, mainstream Christianity knows nothing of the experience of the new birth today. And the fall-guy is faith. By making faith mean something entirely different than what the Scriptures testify to, apostate Christian leadership has deceived themselves and untold millions by promoting a type of faith which is nothing but a dead faith; a faith which produces nothing but will worship; a faith, in fact, which actually isn't faith at all, but rather gross unbelief.
Tozer knew the difference - "I think the difference is in the emphasis of the major miracle which we ought to expect in genuine Christian conversion. Those old-timers would not have believed if a major miracle had not taken place. They would never have been willing to accept a pale and apologetic kind of believing on the Son of God. They insisted on a miracle taking place within the human breast. They knew what Peter meant when he said that the Lord God has begotten us unto a living hope." The Tozer Pulpit, Vol II
The unregenerate men who occupy the field today cannot stomach the faith of the Gospel, for it puts the onus for results on God, and Christian leadership today has no time to wait on God - nor do they have any power with God - so they instead cajole people to make "decisions," thereby annihilating every fundamental soteriological truth in the Word of God, and in the process ignorantly assure their "converts" that the "decision" they've made is equivalent to being born again, thus promulgating a false sense of eternal security that has spread like a fatal contagion throughout the world, thereby sealing the fate of untold millions. As Tozer again observed - "In that great and terrible day, there will be those white with shock when they find that they have depended upon a mental assent to Christianity instead of upon the MIRACLE of the new birth." The Tozer Pulpit, Vol I
Yea, Jesus has already exposed the modern unregenerates for the hypocrites they are, for as Bunyan said, the new birth that Jesus mandated takes away all carnal privilege of being born of flesh and blood, and of the will of man. The new birth condemns these human "decisions" categorically and completely. "Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, BUT OF GOD."
These human "decisions" are nothing but vain philosophies cloaked in New Testament terminology, an utterly false Christianity based on a counterfeit, non-efficacious faith that produces nothing but will worship, dressed up by the clever devices of men and decorated with invocations of the name of Jesus. Every major religion in the world operates on the same principle. Only the lingo is different.
Conversely, true Christianity takes a miracle. True Christianity takes a veritable miracle from Almighty God himself, and nothing less. True Christianity begins with a miracle, or it doesn't happen at all. True Christianity is initiated by a miracle taking place unmistakably in every one who is born of the Spirit - there are no exceptions - and this miracle is perpetuated throughout the truly born again Christian's life - as long as he is obedient to the Lord, that is. "Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" Galatians 3:3
Are you born again? You will never recline in the bosom of Abraham unless you have experienced the miracle of the new birth.
Would you be born again? If so, then here is some advice from a sinner who has received grace, a sinner who is utterly unworthy, but a sinner whom the Lord Jesus Christ nevertheless quickened through the unsearchable riches of his grace, a sinner who - because of the grace and truth that comes through Jesus Christ alone - has been born again -
First, do not seek the experience, but rather seek him who gives the experience, yea, seek the Lord Jesus Christ, for he and he alone is able to quicken you and make you a new creature. "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." 2 Corinthians 5:17 Jesus Christ quickens whom he will, and he is able to raise up the dead with a word. Jesus Christ can quicken you in a very moment, in the twinkling of an eye. So seek the giver of the experience if you would lay hold on eternal life; seek Jesus Christ, for in Jesus Christ "are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." Colossians 2:3
Secondly, while you must never seek the experience itself, but rather the giver of the experience, you must nevertheless not be satisfied without the experience. True faith summons the God of all creation. Faith is not a dream; faith is not a wisp of the air; true faith is the substance of hope and the evidence of things not seen. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1 Not seen, that is, by the physical senses - but true faith brings home to every believer's soul the substance and the evidence of heaven and eternal life itself, and it does so in the here and now, yea, true faith brings the Lord Jesus Christ rushing into the soul of all who are given this gift.
Beware, for true faith is not something you "work up," as is so adulterously propounded in so many circles today. God forbid! Beware of trying to "work up" faith. Such activity is not of the Lord. Such activity is sensual, devilish.
True faith is a gift, as it is written: "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the GIFT of God." Ephesians 2:8
Faith is a gift of God, and if you will be born again, you will be born again by supernatural faith. You will not be born again by the faith of flesh. If you will be born again, your new birth will be an experience in the Lord Jesus Christ from beginning to end, from faith to finish, for not only is Jesus the "author and finisher of our faith," Hebrews 12:2, but as well, "Salvation is of the LORD." Jonah 2:9
Not one single soul who is born again will ever be able to ascribe his salvation to anything but grace, and the truly born again man knows it - not his faith, not his will, not his "acceptance," not his "choosing" - nothing whatsoever. Saving faith is a supernatural faith, and this supernatural faith is a gift of God. Charles Spurgeon stated the case with unerring accuracy - "The power to grasp Christ does not lie in our nature in its own strength or goodness. Our state is that of death, and death cannot grasp life. God the Holy Spirit must breathe life into us before we can rise from the grave of our natural depravity and lay hold upon Christ... The power to lay hold of Christ is a spiritual power that must be given from above... The man must be born again from above, and his heart must be opened to receive the grace of God... God gives not only the blessing to the heart, but also the heart to receive the blessing." Grace Abounding In A Believer's Life, p 22-24
If you will be born again, it will be by the sheer grace of God in Christ Jesus; it will be by the Spirit of Jesus Christ blowing where he listeth. You will hear the sound thereof - which is none other than the voice of Jesus - but you will not be able to tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth. This is the heritage of every one that is born of the Spirit, as the Scriptures themselves do testify - "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 every one that is born of the Spirit." John 3:8
The man who is born again doesn't wonder if it actually happened. The man who is born again is a man to whom Jesus Christ has personally introduced himself in the Holy Ghost. The man who is born again is a man who knows the voice of the Shepherd more certainly than he knows the voice of his own mother. The man who is born again has in the new birth a regeneration that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against." Matthew 16:18
Let me also warn you: speaking in tongues is not by any means evidence of the new birth. The tongues movement today is not of the Spirit of God, so take heed. Neither is the so-called "baptism of the Holy Spirit" that is propounded today of God, so again, beware. These are counterfeit experiences, and they will lead only to deep deception, a deception from which very few will ever recover. There is, of course, a true baptism of the Holy Spirit, but that occurs when you experience the new birth, and it is not something that is worked up by men or by the laying on of unholy hands. There is also the true gift of tongues, and the Holy Ghost is as free to give this gift now as he was two thousand years ago, but that is almost wholly not what is going on today. We haven't time to digress on these two matters here. For now, stay away from anyone propounding either of these counterfeit doctrines, both of which look like truth to the undiscerning, but which have no purchase in truth at all. So beware.
Finally, if you are not born again, "Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness on you." Hosea 10:12
Yea, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ; believe that he is faithful; believe that he is able to perform that which he has promised, for verily he is able, yea, he is even "able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." Ephesians 3:20
If you lack the gift of faith, then implore Jesus just as the distraught father implored Jesus, "Lord, help thou mine unbelief." If you lack the gift of faith, then search the Gospels, and note how Jesus halted outside of Jericho when blind Bartimaeus cried after him out of the depths of his weary despair. Notice how Jesus sparred with the Syrophenician woman in order to ignite her faith before fulfilling her desire. Watch how Jesus had compassion on the woman with the issue of blood when he calmed all her fears after acknowledging that her supernatural faith had touched him when no others could, and how immediately afterward the very same Jesus banished eternal sorrows by giving faith to those who witnessed him raise a little girl from the dead. Observe the readiness with which Jesus hastened toward Capernaum to heal a lowly servant in reward of a master's measure of faith that Jesus had not found before in Israel, and the care Jesus displayed by feeding the congregation in the wilderness, thereby multiplying the faith of his disciples as surely as he had multiplied the bread. These all obtained from Jesus that which they sought, because these all called upon Jesus from the depths of their own despair, yea, these all called upon Jesus in truth.
Will you be born again? Did Bartimaeus receive his sight? Did the Syrophenician woman find deliverance for her daughter? Was the diseased woman made whole? Did two grieving parents see their child come back to life, thus turning their mourning into joy? Was a lowly servant showered with health, and were the multitudes filled?
All this and more, Jesus will do for those who call upon him, yea, for those who call upon him in truth.