DELIVERED BY
C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"You must be born again." John 3:7.
WHEN men are perishing all around you it would be cruel to waste time
in attempting to interest their minds or to amuse their fancies. We
must do something more practical and give earnest heed to their
pressing necessities. Is it famine which slays them? Let us feed them.
Is it cold? Let us supply them with covering. Is it disease? Let us
administer medicine. When the case is urgent, we confine ourselves to
necessities and attend with our whole heart to that which must have our
attention. That which may can wait, but that which must demands our
immediate care.
Now, the spiritual needs of men are urgent and among them the most
pressing is their regeneration–they must be born again or they are
lost! Therefore, at this time we will dwell on this topic and give it
our whole consideration, letting other interesting matters wait till
this most weighty business is happily over. This is a must and we must
press it upon you at once with our whole heart! Our earnest desire is
for a great ingathering of souls to the garner of salvation, but in
order to this they must be born again. We have had many of you hovering
round about us like birds around the fowler, but you are not, as yet,
taken in the Gospel net. This state of things cannot content us–we
need to see you decided for Christ and truly born again.
You have long been hearers, but, alas, you remain hearers, only, and
are not "doers of the Word of God." We do not want the fault to lie
with us–if you continue unsaved it shall not be because we have not
preached the Gospel and kept to preaching it and preached it as a
matter of life and death! Again, then, we aim at the one point, the
point of absolute necessity–"You must be born again." We trust that if
one arrow does not reach the mark, another may. At any rate, we will
continue driving at the one target–the conversion of your souls. O you
who as yet have not been brought to know the Lord, may the Holy Spirit
guide the arrow at this hour!
And now we will have a little simple talk about the great experience
called regeneration, or the new birth, without which no man can see the
kingdom of Heaven, much less enter it.
I. And we shall remark concerning it, in the first place, that the
change which is worked in us by the new birth is MOST THOROUGH. "You
must be born again." A new birth is the most sweeping and entire
process conceivable. It is, in fact, more than a change, it is a
creation. Regeneration is a great deal more than reformation of life,
or a becoming religious, for it is not, "You must be washed, you must
be improved, you must be elevated," but, "you must be born." It is not
enough that the present life, as already possessed, should be
renovated; that the existing nature should receive fresh vigor and new
tone, but "you must be born again"–a new life must be received and no
improving the present life will suffice in its place.
It is also a great deal more than any change of opinion. I am always
afraid of those persons who glory in being converted from one set of
religious opinions to another. The best converts to a Church are those
who are brought into it from the world–those who migrate from other
sections of Christianity are not often the most valuable acquisitions.
Sometimes, like the convicts who leave their country for their
country's good, they benefit their party best by leaving it and do not
come to the newly adopted section of the Church as an unmixed gain. The
text says not, "You must change your opinions and drink in new
notions," but, "You must have a new nature; you must be born again."
Notions may be altered again and again and yet the man may be no nearer
being a child of God–but let the nature be changed by the Holy
Spirit–and then the matter is accomplished!
This it is and nothing short of this can land a man in Heaven–he must
become a new creature in Christ Jesus. The process of the new birth is
so thorough that it is a great deal more than an alteration of a man's
way of thinking, even upon the best of topics. A man may now think it
his duty to be religious, whereas once he was debauched. He may now
conceive it to be his duty to be sober, whereas before he was a drunk.
He may feel it his duty, now, to be diligent, whereas
before he was a sluggard. But all these put together would not amount
to a new birth! We rejoice in reformation of any sort. The less sin
there is in the world the better, but, for all that, the vital point
will not have been reached with all the alterations of thought and even
of life, of which a man is capable!
The text remains in force after all the renovations, conversions and
reformations that are possible to unaided flesh and blood–and it cries
with stern, unchanging voice–"You must be born again." The person
concerned may have passed through a long series of ceremonies. He may
have been received with a welcome into a so-called church and from the
hands of those who think themselves priests there may have distilled
the aqueous imposture which is said to regenerate the soul. But there
is something more needed than priests can convey, or than water can
effect. Our Lord Jesus Christ meant something far other than the hocus
pocus of an empty form when He said, "You must be born again."
I say in the presence of all that have been baptized in infancy and all
that have been baptized in adult age but were not Believers–you, even
you, baptized infidels–"Fou must be born again!" If you have been
baptized and re-baptized, but are still unbelievers and have not the
Spirit of God in your souls, "you must be born again." What does all
this mean? And what is the signification of this so thorough change? Do
not the words evidently mean that a new nature must be created in us?
For a life, a nature is the production of a birth. At a birth there
comes into the world a life which was not there before.
There must come into us a new life to which, by nature, we are perfect
strangers–something far beyond that which belongs to us as we are born
after the flesh–a life that was not latent in the infant, to be
gradually developed in the training of the child, but a life which is
altogether absent till Divine Grace implants it there. "You must be
born again"–you must be created again, or as the Scriptures say,
"Begotten again unto a lively hope." The life within you must be as
fresh a creation as was the light when God spoke it, or as was the
world when God formed it out of nothing! A work of Divine power must be
exercised upon you equal to that which raised the Lord Jesus from the
dead and gave Him
Glory!
With a new life in the matter of our ordinary birth there begins a new
experience. To the new-born child everything is new. Every pain, every
sensation of pleasure is all novel to him–he has known nothing of all
this before. And though we may have attained to manhood, or even to old
age when we are born again, the spiritual life is all a fresh
experience. There are new feelings of contrition; there is a new faith;
there is a new joy, a new hope–everything is new–"Old things have
passed away and all things have become new." Though the man may have
traversed many paths and experienced many sensations, yet the moment he
is born again, he is a stranger in a strange land and he is led in a
way which he knows not and in paths which he has not seen. All young
souls just born to God, however old they may be as to the bodily
reckoning, rejoice in the sacred novelty of the new life and they thank
and bless God who has put His hands, a second time, to the work and
quickened them into newness of life.
Now, as there is a new life, a new nature and a new experience, so is
there to the child born and the man regenerated a new world. It is all
new to the child–its brothers and sisters surprise it. When it is
taken into the open air and sees the green fields for the first time,
it marvels at them! To the little one everything is fresh. It lives in
a museum; it is surrounded with wonders! Even the toys which grown-up
people look upon with so much contempt are quite marvels to the little
one–it is charmed with them all. A Christian, a man or woman born
again, lives in a new world. It is all new to him now, as I remember to
have heard a young girl say, when first she found the Savior. When she
came to confess her faith in Christ she said, "Either I am altogether
changed, or else the world is"–and I could not help telling her I
hoped it was both–I hoped she herself was changed and that this change
had produced the other, so that all things had become new.
There is a new Heaven and a new earth reserved for us, by-and-by, and
even now, while we are in this world, it is no longer to us what it is
to the carnal man. To the twice-born, the world is turned upside down.
The things we once loved we cease to care for. Former objects of
ambition we count but dross, while things that were contemptible become
to us objects of supreme solicitude. The Holy Spirit having changed us,
our views of all around us are entirely different. Such must be your
experience, dear Hearer, or you will live as carnal men and die in your
sins. You must experience this Divine creation, no matter who you may
be–there can be no exceptions–you must know this great change or be
lost!
You may have been dandled on the lap of piety; the name of Jesus may
have mingled with the hush of your first lullaby; you may scarcely, at
first, have heard any music but that of holy hymns; you may have been
taught morality and
sanctity by the example of many generations of ancestors. But, be you
who you may, or what you may, you must receive a new life and you must
pass through a new experience–and you must live in a new world or be
lost! You must live in the spiritual world where all is new. You must
converse with God, a thing unknown to you before. You must converse
with His Son to whom you have been a stranger. You must feel the power
and energy of the Spirit working in you, a matter which you have never
known till now, or there is no hope for you!
Note that every birth brings into operation a new force. A new worker
is born. He is feeble as yet, but those little feet will yet be strong
for running and those tiny hands will yet become dexterous at some
useful craft. And so, when a soul is born to God, it feels a new power
within and it becomes a new force. It is obedient to a power which it
never recognized before and a power is put forth from it which it had
not been able to exercise before and did not even understand. A new
power has come among men when another soul is born to God–the
spiritual world is stronger and the carnal world is all the weaker for
the birth of another spiritual man.
I do not know how to put the matter better than this, but I think I
have shown you that regeneration is a most thorough change. To be born
again is no child's play. It is not enough for a man to rise under a
sermon and say, "I have been impressed and touched by it and I believe
I am converted." There is a vast difference between saying, "I am born
again," and really undergoing the heavenly birth. It is not making a
profession, or even maintaining it with credit for years which will
suffice, for, alas, some have seemed almost Apostles and yet have been
altogether sons of perdition! You must come to know vitally, indeed,
and of a truth in your own soul what it is for the flesh to be
crucified with Christ and for a new life to be implanted in you
supernaturally as the work of the Holy Spirit, or else you cannot enter
into the Kingdom of God. The work is radical, spiritual, marvelous,
Divine!
II. In the second place it is MOST WONDERFUL. It is most wonderful in
the sense of mystery–as to the manner of it. It is not easy to preach
from this text and attempt to go minutely into details for, if we did
so, we might venture too far. I have read treatises upon the subject
which were far too destitute of delicacy and calculated to disgust
rather than to impress. We do not pry and must not pry into a Divine
secret. "You hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell where it comes, or
where it goes; so is everyone that is born of the Spirit."
Who knows how the Holy Spirit works? That He works by means of the Word
of God we know. That He blesses the Truth of God read in a book or
heard from the minister–this we know–but how it is He enters into the
heart; how it is He creates a spirit within us; how he begets in us the
spiritual life–who can tell but God only? But then we do not need to
know–it is enough for us to be assured of the fact–the manner we need
not pry into. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." They
know experimentally what it is to be born again, but they themselves
could not explain how it is that the sacred wind blows, nor how the
Spirit operates upon the human heart.
Many discussions there have been as to whether the Spirit of God, as it
were, comes nakedly into contact with the nature of man, or whether He
always works in and by Truth and thought, and so on. Into all this it
is not necessary for us to go. We would rather admire, wonder and
adore, for these are better than merely to comprehend since a man may
understand all mysteries and yet be as a sounding brass and a tinkling
cymbal. It is a mystery as to the supernaturalness of the operation,
for true regeneration is always supernatural. There is no doubt that
moral persuasion does much with men; that the influence of association
will often improve men's manners and habits; that great results may
flow from education, especially if it is of the right kind. And that
much may be developed in mankind that is admirable, honest, lovely, and
of good repute.
But this is nothing to the purpose, since it is not what our Savior
meant–it falls short of the new birth and is, indeed, quite another
thing. The Holy Spirit, the third Person in the blessed Trinity must as
much come to work upon us as God came forth to work upon this world in
its creation, or else we are not born again. It is not enough that we,
of ourselves and in the energy of our old nature begin to pray, repent
and so on, for all that which can come of our flesh will still be
flesh. In regeneration it is the Spirit who begins by infusing the life
and then the new nature begins to pray and repent. That which is born
of the Spirit is spirit and, therefore, the new birth must be a
spiritual operation in order to produce that spiritual nature without
which we cannot see and enter into the things of God.
This is a solemn matter for you, my Hearer, if you have been merely an
attendant upon the means of Grace and a lover of the outward forms of
religion. Do I mean to tell you that you must undergo a change which is
beyond your own working, which all the men in this world and all the
angels in Heaven could not work in you, but which God Himself
must perform? I do mean that–I mean nothing less than that! "Am I to
understand," you say, "that almighty power must work upon me as much as
in my creation?" I mean that and that it needs as much power to cause
you to be born again as it did to make a world! Yes, and that the same
power which raised Jesus Christ from the dead when He had slept three
days in the grave is needed in all its fullness to raise you from your
death of sin–and must be exerted if ever you are raised at all.
It is a wonderful thing that the Spirit of God should condescend to
undertake this work and that the Lord should set Himself a second time
to the work. It is surprising that when the vessel was marred upon the
wheel and spoiled, instead of breaking it up and consigning it to
destruction, He should put forth all His power again and fashion the
clay to His own model! He stoops to make us twice born, new-created,
begotten again, that we might at the last come to wear the image of
Jesus, the First-Born among many Brethren. "You must be born
again"–the Infinite Jehovah must deign to be, a second time, our
Creator or we must hopelessly perish!
This work is wonderful because of the grandeur of the relationship into
which it introduces us. The child that is born has a father from the
very fact of its birth and we that are born from above cry, "Abba,
Father," from the very fact that we are regenerated! Adoption gives us
the rights of children, but only regeneration gives us the nature of
children! Because we are sons, God sends forth the Spirit of His Son
into our hearts, whereby we cry, "Abba, Father." If I have been born
again, no matter what my station in life or position in society, God is
my Father and it follows that Jesus Christ is my Brother–and this not
merely in form and in name as men call each other Brethren when there
is no actual relationship–but there is a real relationship between us
and Christ Jesus and the Divine Father, for we are made "partakers of
the Divine Nature."
We are the sons of God, and if sons of God, then are we brothers and
sisters of Christ! It must be so and it follows from this that if
children, then heirs, and if Christ is the heir, we are joint-heirs
with Him. My Brethren, what privileges spring out of the relationship
which arises from the new birth, for our Father pledges Himself for our
support, for our comfort, for our education, for all that is necessary
for our perfection in the day of the home-bringing when we shall see
Him face to face! What can happen to a man so great as to be born
again? Suppose some of the poorest of the earth who have swept the
streets for a paltry pittance should suddenly be elevated by royal
favor to the peerage. Or imagine that by some revolution of the wheel
of Providence they should become emperors and kings–yet what of that?
The change would be extraordinary and men would wonder at it, for the
passages in history which have been thought most noteworthy have been
those wherein paupers have mounted from the dunghill to the throne and
fishermen have cast aside their rough garments to put on the imperial
purple. But these strides from nothingness to greatness are
inconsiderable and trifling compared with rising from being a slave of
Satan to become a son of God! To be elevated by God Himself from the
darkness and degradation and bondage under which we are brought by the
Fall and by actual sin, to the liberty, to the glory, to the eternal
blessedness of the children of God–this surpasses all conception! This
can only be ours through our being born again!
Our first birth makes us sons of Adam; our second birth makes us sons
of God! Born of the flesh, we inherit corruption–we must be born of
the Spirit to inherit incorruption. We come into this world heirs of
sorrow because we are sons of the fallen man. Our new life comes into
the new world an heir of Glory, because it is descended from the Second
Man, the Lord from Heaven! Thus I have spoken upon the wonderful
character of this work as well as upon the thoroughness of it.
III. Now, let us remark, in the third place, that wonderful and
mysterious as the new birth must always be, it is MOST MANIFEST. The
house knows when a child is born. There are mysteries surrounding its
birth, but the fact is apparent enough. You shall soon hear its cry in
the nursery and before long its prattle in the parlor. You shall see
the joy of the parents as they clasp their offspring and the care with
which they watch for its good. So in the new birth, we know not how the
Spirit works, but we know that He does work and we soon see that a
marvelous change has come over those whom He has made possessors of the
heavenly seed, creatures of the new life! Those who know converted
persons best are among the first to perceive the transforming miracle
of Grace.
Do you not think that Elstow knew when John Bunyan had found the
Savior? The bell-ringers knew it–there was no more Sabbath-breaking!
And the few poor, godly people that used to meet at Bedford knew it,
for he crept into their midst and began to ask them about the things
which had become the delight of his soul. We sometimes hear of a person
being born again and not knowing it–a somewhat singular matter. Yet I
suppose that such an event, after a fashion, very commonly happens in
the Episcopalian denomination, because if persons are born again in
infant baptism there are thousands in London who have undergone the
change! But I am sure that they cannot be sure of it, for their own
lives would not tell them so and their own emotions and feelings would
not lead them to any such belief.
Regeneration is a poor business if these baptized rebels are
regenerate! Why, at that rate our prisons swarm with regenerated
thieves and our streets are infested with regenerated harlots! And
occasionally we have regenerate murderers–all born again in their
baptism, made children of God, members of Christ and inheritors of the
Kingdom of Heaven. The lie is sickening! The devil himself laughs at
it! Of all transparent falsehoods, surely that of baptismal
regeneration is the grossest! It is a marvel that men who live and walk
among sane persons should ever fall into it. Ah, Sirs, where the true
Heaven-given life is found, there is something to show for it!
Does a man say, "I am regenerate"? Come, then, Sir, what is the
difference in you? What life do you lead? Have you a higher objective
than the ordinary sons of men? Are you swayed by higher motives? Are
there diviner impulses pulsing in your soul than those which stir the
hearts of worldlings? "For except your righteousness exceed that of the
scribes and Pharisees," the best of worldlings, "you cannot enter into
the kingdom of God." If the love of Christ within does not make us
better than the best of worldly men, we give no evidence of having
experienced the renewing work of God the Holy Spirit! The heavenly life
is very manifest–and it is all the more so from the fact that there
are certain signs which always attend and attest the new birth.
Persons may be born again and yet they may not be able to see with us
in certain points of doctrine, but there are some things which all the
regenerate agree about. For first, every soul that is born again
repents of its sin. If a man lives in his sin as he used to do, he must
not pretend that he is a twice-born man, or he will mightily deceive
himself. If he can look upon sin in the same light as he did before; if
he can find pleasure in it, yes–if he does not unfeignedly turn from
it with loathing and seek the mercy of God to blot it out–he knows
nothing of what regeneration is! Again all the regenerate have faith.
They all agree in finding the sole ground of their hope in the blood
and merit of Jesus. Meet them anywhere and they will tell you they have
no confidence except in the Savior's precious blood. He is all their
salvation and all their desire. They rest upon this Rock, every one of
them, and no matter what high professors they may be, or what lofty
offices they hold in the Church, if Christ is not their one and only
trust, they know not what it is to be born again!
In addition to this, all that have passed from death unto life pray. If
it really rises from the heart, prayer is an infallible mark of the new
birth. If it can be said of a man, "He does not pray," then he is still
dead in his sins, the Spirit of God has not renewed his soul. I might
mention some other holy signs which are invariable accompaniments of
the new birth, but these three will suffice for all practical purposes.
You can test yourselves, Beloved, by them. Have you repented? Have you
faith towards God? Do you rejoice to draw near to God in prayer? If
these things are in you, they are marks of the new life, for they were
never yet found in the spiritually dead!
Do you groan over sin? A corpse does not groan–gracious mourning over
transgression is one of the surest proofs of inward spiritual life.
Trust in Jesus is an equally clear sign of spiritual life, for the dead
man does not know what it is to trust. And genuine prayer is equally a
certain token of life received from above. A pang of penitential grief,
a thought of holy trust and a yearning of inward prayer are more than
all the unregenerate upon earth can compass, even though they should be
doctors of divinity or cardinals of the church!
This new life, the new birth, is a very manifest thing from the power
that it puts into men after it has had time to develop itself. At first
converts are trembling and weak, but if they have received the new life
they gather strength and there is a power in it which the Church soon
rejoices in and which the devil trembles at. This power, of course, can
be kept under restraint by unbelief and other follies, but it ought to
have full range and should never be repressed. I often wish our
Christian people were a little more natural in their expression of what
they feel. If any Brother cries, "Amen" very heartily after prayer,
many look at him, but in the primitive Church it was the universal
custom of those who joined in prayer to say, "Amen," by way of
endorsing it and making it their own. I wonder why Christian people
have, to so large an extent, given up the practice? It is a most fit
and proper one and ought to be restored.
I read the other day of a good Bible Christian Brother who sometimes,
when his heart was merry within him with joy in the Holy Spirit, would
even leap for joy as he went to the pit to work. Why should he not do
so? Yet you do not like
the look of it, do you? I would a good deal sooner a man should be as
nimble as David before the ark than be as sleepy as some Christians
are, who, if they have any joy, repress it and never let it out–they
are afraid of expressing their joy for fear they should be misjudged.
Let it not be so with you! If you let the new life within you have its
own course, you may be thought eccentric, but in those eccentricities
will lie your force! Who is he that shall cramp us and hold us in when
the eternal Spirit quickens us? If God has blotted out our sins, we
will praise and magnify His name! And if we have been delivered from
going down into the Pit, we will tell others of it and not hold our
tongues!
Even though our testimony may not be delivered in the most classical
style and our telling forth of the precious Savior's love may not be
all that the educated may wish it to be, yet if we should hold our
peace, the stones of the street would cry out and, therefore, we must
and we will speak! He that has a well within him bubbling up must let
it gush forth–and he that has the new life within him will, in one
form or other, become a power in the midst of his fellow men and the
secret will ooze out that he is a twice-born man! I cannot linger
longer. Regeneration is a thorough change and a wonderful change–but
it is a manifest change and in some men it is especially so. Be it our
aim to prove to a demonstration that we are born from above!
IV. But now, very briefly, regeneration is a MOST IMPERATIVE change.
You must, you must, you must be born again! You may be rich or you may
be poor, but "you must be born again." You may be intelligent, you may
be educated, you may be talented, but "you must, you must be born
again." Many things are desirable, but one thing is necessary,
imperatively necessary–you must, you must, you must be born again!
This imperative necessity may be seen from many points of view. We
cannot mention them all, but just one or two. If you are not born
again, you have no life, no spiritual life. The first birth gave you
bodily life and mental life, but it did not give you spiritual life–it
could not do so, for that which is born of the flesh is flesh and no
more. Now, you must have spiritual life or else you are dead in
trespasses and sins and to all that has to do with spiritual
blessings–to a spiritual Gospel, a spiritual salvation, a spiritual
Heaven–to all these things you are dead as the corpses in their graves
are dead to the business of today.
There may be great changes taking place in politics–trade may be very
prosperous, or it may be depressed, but the dead man has no interest in
the nation or its commerce–how can he have? So is it with you. Until
you are born again, the spiritual world is shut to you and you are
indifferent to it. Angels may be rejoicing and Believers may be
rejoicing over saved souls, but you care nothing about it. The Lord
Jesus Himself may be seeing of the travail of His soul, but it is
nothing to you and it must be nothing to you because you are dead! Oh
if our bodies could take the shape of our souls, there would be many
carcasses sitting before me in these pews! Ah, strange and ghastly
sight! We thank God that He conceals the spiritual from our eyes, else
we might, in horror, leave the places where we sit because we should
find ourselves in close companionship with the dead! What a horrible
thing a dead soul must be if our spirits could now perceive it as our
senses would perceive a corpse!
Let us pause here to realize striking facts in this connection. Some of
you are linked in marriage with the spiritually dead. Some of you have
dwelling in your house the children of your care who are dead while
they live. You will sit tonight at the supper table with the
spiritually dead! Regard them in that light and your hearts will,
perhaps, be moved to pray more intensely for them than you have ever
done. You that sit regularly in this place, I would like you to
remember this fact when this house is crowded. Think, "In my pew there
are sitting an unconverted man and an unconverted woman–and they are
dead." We don't expect them to feel for themselves, but we do expect
the living to feel for them. My dear Hearers who are unrenewed, do you
not see that you must be born again, for unless you are so, you will
remain dead to spiritual things?
Furthermore, remember that a man who is not born again has no spiritual
capacity. We must be receivers, first, in the spiritual life, but the
dead sinner as yet, until God quickens Him, can receive nothing. How
often are the saints of God spiritually comforted, instructed and
enriched under the preaching and hearing of the Word of God? But it is
their spiritual nature that receives the enrichment. The unregenerate
have no spiritual nature–they are carnal, sold under sin–their mental
powers, as well as their bodily appetites, are enslaved. Therefore they
have no power to receive the blessing. The gracious and ever-blessed
rain of the Spirit comes, but they are not like Gideon's fleece ready
to drink it in, but like a hard stone upon which the drops may descend
but cannot be saturated with the moisture, nor softened by it.
Unregenerate men are broken cisterns which it is vain to attempt to
fill. Even if God's own Grace were to come to them it could not be
retained, for they have not the capacity to hold it.
Only the spiritual can receive the spiritual! You must, then, be born
again to have a spirit by which spiritual things are discerned and
received. Do you not see that you must be born again? Once more, you
must be born again because without the Sprit of God you are not the
children of God and, consequently, you have no spiritual inheritance.
The Spirit causes us to be born–that birth makes us children and our
being children makes us heirs. If we are not born again we are not
children, therefore we are not heirs and we are out of the heritage,
for God's heritage of Glory is for the heirs of Grace and for none
others. And none shall come into the eternal portion but those who are
born in His house and are His true sons and daughters. Universal
fatherhood, whatever that may be, brings us common mercies, but it is
the special fatherhood which God has towards the living in Zion which
brings us special blessings!
You must, then, be born again or lose all share in the Divine
inheritance. No soul can ever cross the threshold of Heaven that has
not received the new life. No matter how abundant its prayers, nor how
multiplied its acts of religiousness, unless it has been born again,
the gates of Paradise are forever fastened against it. Banished from
the Presence of Jehovah's Glory, there is only one other place where it
can dwell–and that must be where their worm dies not and their fire is
not quenched. "You must be born again."
V. I will finish my discourse by saying that this new birth is
EMINENTLY PERSONAL. "You must be born again." The idea of proxy is
quite apart from the figure of the text. A man is born himself, in
propria persona–no other can be born for him–so here the change which
must be worked in us must be personally experienced and individually
known and felt. What delusion it is to fall back upon a parent's
godliness or a godfather's promises, or to imagine that the minister or
the so-called priest can stand before God for us! "You"–"you must be
born again" and if you are not, you shall never enter the Kingdom of
God!
Now, I think I hear passing through the congregation at this moment the
whisper of many hearts who are saying, "This is very discouraging. We
like to hear, 'Only believe and you shall be saved.' We are glad to be
told that, 'whoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ has everlasting
life.' But this distresses us, for it does not open the door as wide as
we could wish." Believe me, I am very glad to tell you of the free and
wide Gospel of Grace! It is joyful work for me to bring that welcome
message to you and I am sure I bring it as constantly as I come upon
this platform. My most frequent note is–"Look unto Christ and be saved
all you ends of the earth." But at the same time, God forbid that you
should be built up upon a false foundation, or that your faith and
confidence should stand apart from the Truth of God as it is in Jesus.
It will be found to be wood, hay and stubble if it is so.
But you say my sermon is discouraging–had you not better ask, "Is it
true?" A person has been building a house and we see him piling up
stones, but he has never dug out a foundation! It is certainly
discouraging to him to tell him that it is not the right way to build a
house, but it will be a great mercy for him to be discouraged in a work
which is so foolish. It will be a great saving to him, in the long run,
if all that he has already built should come down at once and he should
even now begin at the beginning once more and lay a good foundation and
make sure work of it. It would be foolish to cry out, "Do not
discourage him!" He ought to be discouraged. Yes, indeed, we would
discourage all that will end in disappointment. The fact is, your
efforts, your doings and your merits, all of them, at their very best,
must be a failure and it is a good thing for us to tell you so.
"But what am I to do?" asks one. That, permit me to remind you, is not
the best question for you to ask, for if the work of salvation were
what you must do, surely it would be left undone! You may put the
question, "What must I do to be saved?" but we will point you away from
doing and we will tell you to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that
you may be saved. If you persist in saying, "What must I do," we will
tell you that the sooner you look away from all that you can do, the
better–for the work of salvation from sin is the work of the Spirit of
God in you and you must come to look to Him through Jesus Christ that
He may work in you all those graces and gifts which shall adorn your
future life. Faith looks to the blood of Jesus for the pardon of sin
and then looks to Him for His Spirit to overcome the power of sin
within the heart–nor does she look in vain–but if you look elsewhere
you will search till your eyes fail you and never see your desire.
Would to God we could bring you, not only to discouragement, but to
despair of yourselves! When you shall feel you are powerless we shall
have hope of you, for then you will leave yourselves in the hands of
Him who can do all things!
When self's strength is gone, God's strength will come in. "Oh, but you
tell me I must have Divine power working in me." We do tell you
that–we can tell you nothing less–and if that power is ever at work
in your soul, its first effect will be to bring you to confess this and
you will fall down before the footstool of Divine Mercy and say, "Lord
save me, or I perish. God be merciful to me a sinner." I do not want to
rouse your activity, you unconverted people–I want to rouse you to the
conviction that you are lost and I pray God the Holy Spirit may so
convince you! I wish not to make you think, "we can cure ourselves,"
but oh that you would feel that you are diseased and that, though you
have destroyed yourselves, your remedy lies in a higher hand–that you
must look to Jesus, only, for healing!
To get the supernatural element into the matter is that which we would
strive for and may God the Holy Spirit help us in it. We would have you
look away from what is in you or can come from you and trust to what
Christ did on the Cross, to what the gracious Father is waiting, still,
to do and what the Holy Spirit is sent on purpose to work in you that
you may be saved! Oh that you may begin to pray for the Divine power!
May you never rest in anything short of the Divine working in your
spirit. It is to this we would bring you!
Now you know all this and have known it for years, the most of you. To
know it–ah, how great a privilege if not abused! How great a
responsibility if the knowledge shall end here! Yet to know it, oh how
sad unless you feel it! To feel that, "I must be born again," and to be
wretched till I am renewed in heart is a good beginning! I pray that
you may go home and feel, "There is no pillow in this world that will
suit my head till I have laid it upon the Savior's bosom. There is no
bliss that can give me solace till I have found pardon in the wounds of
my Redeemer." God grant you may sigh and pant in this way and we shall
then believe that you are regenerate! May you receive the Lord Jesus
and He will give you power to become the sons of God, for those who
believe in Him were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man, but of God!
Then shall you know the secret of regeneration and the Lord, Himself,
shall be revealed in you. Then shall you know that you are blessed of
the Lord, for flesh and blood could not have revealed this unto you.
May the Holy Spirit be within you evermore. Amen.
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–John 3:1-21. HYMNS FROM "OUR
OWN HYMN BOOK"–456, 448, 461.
TO MY HEARERS AND READERS AT THE TABERNACLE AND ELSEWHERE:
BELOVED FRIENDS–By the tender kindness of God, the journey here was
made without excessive fatigue and now I trust that genial weather will
bring with it rapid restoration. This place has participated in the
severe weather which has swept over the Continent, so that I miss, just
now, the bright sunshine to which I have been formerly accustomed. Yet
it is comparatively warm and so far is beneficial to an invalid. Rest
is the main thing and rest I hope to find, that I may come back to you
strengthened for sacred service.
It is at the request of many that I write these few lines, otherwise I
should be better content to say nothing about myself. Tottering on my
staff today in weakness, I hopefully look forward to the time when I
shall stand among you in fullness of vigor. God grant that mental and,
above all, spiritual strength may be given me for the preaching of the
Word in your midst and that my long bodily affliction may assist to
that end.
I trust I shall not be forgotten in your prayers when it is well with
you. I hope also that the various enterprises such as the College and
Orphanage will not be allowed to languish because their President is
ill. Peace be to you all. Yours very heartily, C H. SPURGEON. MENTONE,
January, 1879
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Peace–a Fact and a Feeling