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Well, we've addressed for several weeks, in fact this is the fourth
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Sunday, Lord's Day, addressing this matter of Jesus and his instruction to Nicodemus regarding the new birth, being born again, the grace of regeneration causing a person to become a
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Christian. The Lord made it very clear to Nicodemus that as good a man as he was, by everybody's opinion, he wasn't good enough.
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He needed to be born again in order to enter the kingdom of God. He must be born of water and spirit, and we showed what that means, is that not only did
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Nicodemus need to be cleansed of his sin, but he needed to be given new life through the
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Holy Spirit, and that's what's mentioned by water and spirit. This was necessary in order to enable him, qualify him, fit him to enter the kingdom of God.
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Now, we might wonder, however, how do you determine if this has occurred in your life?
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Are you born again? How do you know? How can you tell? And so today we'll consider how to assess and identify a true work of grace by the
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Holy Spirit, and we'll attempt to distinguish that true work of grace from that which is spurious, that which is not a true work of God's redeeming work, grace of regeneration by the
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Holy Spirit. I want to turn again and we'll read once more the passage before us.
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Hopefully it's very familiar to us. There was a man of the Pharisees named
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Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him,
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Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.
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Jesus answered, said to him, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
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Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?
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Jesus answered, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
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That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.
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The wind blows where it wishes. You hear the sound of it, but you cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes.
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So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered, said to him,
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How can these things be? Jesus answered, said to him, Are you the teacher of Israel and do not know these things?
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Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what we know and testify what we have seen, and you do not receive our witness.
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If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
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No one has ascended to heaven, but he who came down from heaven, that is the Son of Man who is in heaven.
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And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life, everlasting life.
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And so we've been addressing this very important matter, the new birth or regeneration, which the
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Lord Jesus declared is absolutely essential. If a person is to see and enter the kingdom of God.
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The Lord told Nicodemus, indirectly, that his ethnicity as a
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Jew, his lifelong effort to keep the law of God, his devotion and commitment to live as a strict
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Pharisee, his being a prominent teacher of Israel, that all these qualities, all these achievements, counted for nothing toward his future entrance into the glorious kingdom of God.
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Nicodemus would not be saved from his sin unless God did a sovereign work of grace in his soul.
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And so Jesus said to Nicodemus, most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.
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Now last week we concluded with just a few inter -directory words about verses 11 and verse 12.
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And so we'll first consider the meaning of these verses before we address what I mentioned up above.
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How do you know that a true work of the Holy Spirit has taken place in your life?
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And so again we read verses 11 and 12. Jesus saying to Nicodemus, most assuredly
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I say to you, we speak what we know, we testify what we've seen, and you do not receive our witness.
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If I've told you earthly things you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
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It's really at this point, verse 11, that the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus shifts over to a straight monologue from the
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Lord Jesus. Nicodemus stops speaking and the Lord Jesus begins to speak more extensively.
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There is probably a transition between Jesus' words and John the
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Apostle's words who wrote this gospel. However, it's difficult to ascertain to determine at what point did
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Jesus stop speaking and John the Apostle started writing his own understanding in the gospel.
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It's all inspired of God, of course. But this poses a problem, particularly for those
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Bibles that have red litter editions. And sometimes there's differences between Bibles.
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Sometimes the red letters will continue through verse 15 but verses 16 through the end of the chapter are in black font letters rather than red font.
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And that indicates that the editors of that version, that translation, believe that Jesus' language or speech stopped at verse 15.
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Others, however, continue all the way to, what is it, verse 21, the end of the chapter.
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And my Reformation study Bible, and I have both the New King James Version and the ESV, the red letters of Jesus' speech continue through verse 21.
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And so that would make John 3 .16 as having been spoken by the Lord Jesus himself rather than John the
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Apostle. And that may indeed have been the case. It's difficult to determine at what point
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Jesus stopped speaking and John the Apostle started writing. Of course, it doesn't matter.
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It's all the inspired word of God. Now here in verse 11 we read another occasion in which our
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Lord began his statement with the double words amen, amen in Greek, or amine, amine, translated in the
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King James, verily, verily. It's translated in our New King James Version as most assuredly.
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This is actually the third time in this very passage that Jesus spoke these words, verily, verily.
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And this doubling of this word is unique to John's Gospel and it is put upon the lips of the
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Lord Jesus 25 times, and three of those are here in the passage that's before us.
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It's interesting that in verse 11 the Lord changed from speaking first person singular, I, to first person plural, we, and our.
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We speak what we know and testify what we have seen and you do not receive our witness.
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Well, who does the we include? Jesus and someone else or others with him?
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Well, there are several different proposals and these are simply proposals of commentators.
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First, perhaps our Lord's reference to we, he was referring to both his own witness and that of John the
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Baptist. John the Baptist had been set forth in John 1 and 2 as a faithful witness of what
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God was doing in the world and so maybe Jesus was referring to his witness along with John the
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Baptist's witness. William Hendrickson, a very reliable and noted reformed commentator of the last century wrote this, the reference in all likelihood to Jesus himself and John the
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Baptist. See, that was his opinion. The term testify immediately reminds one of what was said with reference to the
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Baptist back in chapter one and besides, chapter three, verse five, points to the work of the forerunner.
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Now, that's his interpretation of being born of water, by the way. The need for forgiveness of sins.
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The second proposal was put together or put forward by Matthew Poole. We're familiar with Matthew Henry.
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Matthew Poole was somewhat of a contemporary. Matthew Poole was one of Charles Spurgeon's favorite commentators and he thought that Jesus was referring only to his own witness and no other.
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He was using like a rhetorical we, as it were. Christ speaketh only of himself, though he speaketh in the plural number for in the next verse, here's his reason for saying that, in the next verse, he,
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Jesus, saith only if I have told you earthly things. So he let
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Nicodemus know that he spake nothing but what he was certain of. A third proposal is that of D .A.
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Carson. I disagree with him here, but he's a very, very fine commentator who believed that Jesus spoke using the we in order to somewhat mock
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Nicodemus and that's in verse two. We know you're from God. No man can do these things that you do unless God is with him.
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And so D .A. Carson sees Jesus kind of coming back on Nicodemus. The simplest explanation for the plurals in this verse is that Jesus is sardonically aping the plural that Nicodemus affected when he first approached
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Jesus. Rabbi Nicodemus said, we know that you're a teacher who's come from God.
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I tell you the truth, responds Jesus, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen as if to say we know one or two things, two we do.
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There is a fourth proposal that Jesus use the pronoun we in order to refer to his witness along with the witness of his disciples.
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And of course he had at least five at this point. Perhaps Herman Ritterbos best explained the issue most thoroughly.
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To be sure in chapter three verse 11 in distinction from chapter 331 and other passages speaks of we as a fact that has given rise to divergent interpretations.
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We've already seen a few. Some think that Jesus here identifies himself with the prophets. But then one has to take what we have seen as referring divisions which certainly does not fit
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Jesus. Others think that the reference is to Jesus and John. A view that in my opinion is no less improbable.
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And he takes it, you know, the words we have seen as negating that.
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Nowadays many interpreters understand the we as the we of the church. In other words
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Jesus and the church testifying as it were. But a subject from Jesus to the church is hard to accept because verse 11b is introduced with the emphatic
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I say to you. In other words it's singular. I say to you. Because in verse 12
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Jesus again speaks of himself in the first person. Bear witness in the
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Johannine or the forensic legal sense is used apart from Jesus himself especially of his disciples as those who were with him from the beginning.
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Who on that basis bore witness concerning him and of whom it can therefore be said though in another sense then of Jesus himself that they bear witness to what they've seen and heard.
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Accordingly in verse 11b the plural presumably relates not only to Jesus but also to his disciples as those whom he brought into his mission from above from the beginning.
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And so that was his view. It was Jesus and his disciples. There's actually a fifth proposal.
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Although I did not see this set forth by any of the commentators I refer to. And that is that when
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Jesus used the pronoun we he was referring to himself and the other two persons of the
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Holy Trinity. The Father and the Holy Spirit. Now this is certainly put forward later in the
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Gospel. And when we get there we'll emphasize that. But the immediate context probably does not support this view.
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To understand it this way would have Jesus asserting a thought that he has not introduced to his hearer.
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To his hearers at this point. Nor had John to his readers. Although again certainly the
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Holy Spirit bears witness. The Father bears witness. And Jesus bears witness. And so if this was say found in John chapter 19
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I think that would be a very legitimate interpretation. Our Lord pretty well dismisses the credibility of Nicodemus at this point in his refusal.
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Not just inability. Not because he was incapable of understanding but because he abjectly refused to accept the witness of Jesus.
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And so he really dismisses the credibility of Nicodemus. He said in verse 12,
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If I have told you earthly things you do not believe how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
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Here the earthly things are probably the things that we've been studying. The whole matter of the new birth.
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The need to be born again. The need to be cleansed. The need for new life. The heavenly things, he mentions heavenly things but he doesn't identify what those are.
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The idea probably is Nicodemus if you're not going to accept these things that I've already told you what's the point in going any farther?
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I'm telling you about the glories that lie in the future. If you can't comprehend these basic things right at the outset what good would speaking about the riches of future blessing be to you?
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As one commented, and this was Carson, D .A. Carson, Donald Carson. Nicodemus has found
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Jesus' teaching hard to understand but Jesus turns that incredulity into a fundamental
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Christological question. Nicodemus had approached Jesus with a certain amount of respect in verse two but he had not even begun to appreciate who
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Jesus really was. At bottom, Nicodemus' failure was not a failure of intellect but a failure to believe
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Jesus' witness. You people do not accept our testimony. The failure to believe was more reprehensible than the failure to understand since it betrayed a fundamentally inadequate appreciation of who
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Jesus is. I think the Lord Jesus is confronting him more directly and severely here in these words that Nicodemus did not accept his witness.
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Now we have shown that Jesus taught that the new birth was due to the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit who creates spiritual life and sinners.
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He compared the work of the Holy Spirit to the wind and we considered that in some detail last Lord's Day.
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And so after affirming the great need for Nicodemus to be born again, he said of the work of the
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Spirit in verse eight, the wind blows where it wishes, you hear the sound of it but cannot tell where it comes from where it goes.
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So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. There is a mystery in the work of the
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Holy Spirit. Jesus is making that clear. God is sovereign in his work in souls choosing in whom and when he creates spiritual life within them.
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Just as the wind, you can't control it, you don't see it coming where it comes from, where it's going but you do hear the sound of it.
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And so it's the Lord in his sovereignty that he causes people to be born again so that they repent of sin and believe on Jesus.
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We cannot control the working of the Holy Spirit. But again our
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Lord does say of the wind which is the metaphor of the Holy Spirit that you hear the sound thereof.
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And that's important. In other words, we may see the evidence that the
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Holy Spirit has been at work in a soul even though we cannot see him working directly in the soul.
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I can't see the Holy Spirit working in you. I can't even see him working in me. I can see the evidences of that work but I can't see him working.
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And so we may know the Holy Spirit has wrought new life by the evidences of life in a man or woman or a boy or girl in whom the
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Holy Spirit has created spiritual life. You can hear the sound of it. You can see some evidence of it.
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The work of the Holy Spirit in imparting spiritual life is instantaneous. Here it's likened to a new birth.
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Elsewhere it's likened to a spiritual resurrection. Regeneration causes a sinner who's spiritually dead to pass from spiritual death into a state of spiritual life and it's instantaneous.
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It's an act of God. Just like creation he brings life out of nothing according to 2
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Corinthians 4 .6. There was no life one moment and the next moment there was life, spiritual life.
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Now although some Christians speak of the moment in which God caused them to be born again, not all
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Christians can do that. But it's really not important that you know when you were born again.
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I would venture to say that most of us cannot possibly know the point we were born again.
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But it is important to know that you've been born again. I've asked people in the past, how long have you been a
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Christian? And on occasion the answer has been given to me, I've been a Christian all my life and I tell them that's too long.
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There's a point in time when you pass from death into life. If you're a
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Christian it happened before you came to faith, probably shortly before you came to faith in Jesus.
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I suspect. However, the experience of the new birth may occur at a very young age.
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Many if not most may never know exactly when it happens, but again it's critical to know that it has happened.
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It's all important. By the way, those of you who received my sermon notes by email,
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I send them out to about 220 people every Sunday morning. I came across,
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I've had it in my library for 30 years, I came across Jonathan Edwards' book on the nature of surprising conversions, and it was a recounting of the great awakening of the days here in Massachusetts.
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One pastor said, I've seen more results in two weeks of ministerial labor than in the last 25 years of ministry.
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I mean, there was a great movement taking place. I didn't, I don't think
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I included this part, but within that book he talks about a four -year -old girl who was soundly converted.
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Clearly she was born again, and it was evident in the way she thought, the way she prayed, the concern she had for souls, the love she had for the
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Word of God, it was incredible to read this account of this four -year -old girl.
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Anyway, if you get those notes, I would commend to you the reading of that attached document.
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I read it yesterday, it's about 33, 34 pages long, and it's quite amazing to read what the
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Lord did here in Massachusetts and in northern Connecticut back in the 1730s and the 1740s.
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But how does one know that a true work of the Holy Spirit has been done in one soul? And so we'll speak to this question, but first realize that when
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God purposes that one of His elect to be born again, the Holy Spirit may cause the new birth to be manifest in different persons in different ways, different degrees.
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The Holy Spirit may work in subtle ways in a person. In others, His work of grace may be quite sudden and remarkable.
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The new birth may cause a slow but eventual thorough transformation of a sinner into a saint, or it may transform a person suddenly and quite remarkably.
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And so because of the miraculous and sudden work of the Holy Spirit in causing people to be born again, coming to Christ in faith can often manifest itself in a sudden, radical transformation of a person's life.
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And of course we delight in hearing those stories, don't we? The problem is is when we compare our own experience with those stories, you're going to get yourself into trouble when you do that.
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But the fact is a man can leave the house one morning, one kind of man, come home the night and a new man. Saul of Tarsus was converted on the road to Damascus, wasn't he?
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He left Jerusalem one man, he got to Damascus quite another man. And it's a remarkable thing when it occurs.
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Numerous testimonies could be recounted. I could recount my own experience, and some here could recount their experiences of a wonderful sudden, life -transforming encounter with God, all through the work of the
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Holy Spirit. I want to talk about one man, he was a 19th century man who became quite a well -known preacher, his name was
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Sam Jones. He had been trained as a lawyer, grew up in a Christian home, and yet he'd become a hopeless drunk and a wife -beater.
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And so here's a description of what occurred to him. In August of 1872, there was a dramatic change.
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News came while he was on a six -week drinking binge that his father was seriously ill. On his deathbed his father's words pierced the heart of young Sam.
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My poor, wicked, wayward, reckless boy, you've broken the heart of your sweet wife and brought me down in sorrow to my grave.
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Promise me, my boy, to meet me in heaven. And overcome with emotion, Sam fell to his knees and took his dying father's hand.
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I promise, he shouted, I'll quit drinking and set things straight. I'll meet you in Mother in Heaven.
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And the father died, and Sam kept his vow. He tells about his last encounter with drink.
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I went to the bar and begged for a glass of liquor. I got the glass and started to drink and looked into the mirror.
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I saw my hair matted the filth and vomit on my clothes, one of my eyes totally closed, my lips swollen.
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And I said, is that all that's left of the proud and brilliant lawyer, Sam Jones? I smashed the glass on the floor, fell on my knees and cried, oh
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God, oh God, have mercy. The bartender ran to my side, thought I was dying.
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And I was. I said, just let me alone. I picked up, staggered to my cheap rooming house, said to the ladies running it, would you do me a favor?
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I asked them to bring me a pot of black coffee. I went through three days and nights of hell, but when the morning came, something had happened to old
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Sam Jones. I went down to the clothing store and said, I want you to give me a new suit.
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I got saved last night. Sam Jones is coming back. And not only did
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I get a suit, but shirts, ties, coat, everything I needed. And as I left, the merchant stuck a hundred dollar bill into my hand.
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I went to the barber, for I had not had a shave in over a month. I asked for a bath, shave, haircut.
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I put on my new clothes. I looked pale and weak. I left to go to my wife, whom I had beaten until she was black and blue.
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She didn't even recognize her own husband. I said, honey, God has given you a new husband and the children a new daddy.
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He had sold his little daughter's shoes to get some alcohol just a few days before.
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And I wonder if he will forgive me and start all over again. And she grabbed me in her arms and cried,
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Hallelujah! Hallelujah! I've been praying for this. And I've been going around the country bragging about Jesus ever since.
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And became quite a well -known preacher, Sam Jones. Over the years in our own ministry,
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I've seen some remarkable things, heard some too. The working of the Holy Spirit, bringing
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His people to faith in Christ. I want to recount just a few of these. I find them encouraging and I think they're good examples.
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We should anticipate, Jonathan Edwards talked about how we should anticipate sudden and remarkable conversions in people's lives.
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I was perhaps 22 in the mid -1970s. I was going door -to -door in Plano, Texas, speaking to people about the
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Lord. I knocked on a door and a lady answered. I introduced myself to her and all of a sudden she got quite shocked, quite surprised, speechless.
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And she told me that she was not a Christian, but she had been reading her Bible in her living room.
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She'd been on her knees asking the Lord to send somebody to tell her about Christ when
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I knocked on the door. I went in and I had a ready audience and she listened and I gave the gospel and she professed to be converted.
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It was a wonderful thing. I recall another occurrence in the 1980s.
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We had an elderly lady visiting our church. She did not tell me much about herself.
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She came for about six or eight weeks. She asked me one Sunday if I would visit her good friend named
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Flo. Next Saturday I stopped by Flo's apartment. She asked me in.
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I could tell she was very nervous, rather fearful. I thought she was fearful of me.
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I didn't know what was going on, really. She didn't look physically well at all. She didn't look at me the entire time we visited.
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I spoke, she listened, looking at the floor, wringing her hands. I learned that she was a friend with this gal who was coming to our church and they hit the bars every night.
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They'd been doing that for years. They were drinking buddies. And so I spoke to her.
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She didn't respond. I couldn't get a response from her. I finally asked her, Flo, would you not want to believe on the
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Lord Jesus as your Lord and Savior and pray to Him to forgive you? That He would accept you?
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Something like that. I don't remember the exact words. And she immediately hit the floor on her knees and began to cry out in prayer,
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God forgive me. Jesus Christ forgive me of my sins. It was amazing.
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And again she was not a well woman. As she's praying she begins to hyperventilate. And she fell back on the couch.
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I was so concerned. I thought she was going to die on the spot. I called 911. The ambulance came. And the
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EMT assured me that after she was stabilized they'd take her to the hospital but she was going to be fine.
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And I learned later that day she'd been released from the hospital and was in good condition. But the next morning her friend came to church and I asked her, well how's
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Flo doing? And she said Flo died in the night. The last 24 hours of her life.
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And the Lord showed great mercy upon her. And she was converted. The Lord does that sometimes.
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It's quite an amazing thing. If I had time I could, I don't know that I could, but I would recount the conversion of my dad on his deathbed.
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It's an amazing thing. I'd like to recount one more episode.
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This incident. And again I'm sure that I could speak of many. But this was a remarkable conversion.
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One of the most remarkable I ever heard. Sometimes the Lord's work in bringing salvation is the unusual way in which the gospel message is brought to a person.
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And this certainly occurred in the life of Satish Puri, a friend of ours.
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He was a brilliant man. An accomplished man. He was a nuclear physicist.
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He was also a Christian. Became an elder in our church in Munich, Germany. Satish Puri was born in India.
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Raised in the Hindu religion. And he'd become disillusioned with Hinduism by the time he moved to Boston as a young man.
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He was a secularist by the time he arrived here. In the early 60's. He went to MIT and got his
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Master's degree. And then in the mid to later 60's he moved out to the
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San Francisco Bay Area and attended Stanford University. And he got his PhD there in nuclear physics.
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And then he and Carol, after they married, they met. Carol was a native Californian. They met there. They moved to Germany. To Munich.
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And he worked and taught at the very influential, important center.
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The Max Planck Institute in Munich. And he was there for 25 years. Most researchers go there for a year.
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And then they're down the road. He was there for 25 years. And he was a mathematician principally.
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And he worked on the theory. The theoretical issues of nuclear fusion. And so he took me on a tour one day of where he worked.
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And he showed me this great large room. It was much larger than this sanctuary. And there was this large donut shaped collider.
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Magnets basically. And it was probably about 6 or 8 feet in diameter.
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And they would through magnets suspend plasma. You know, hot molten metal in this collider and get it spinning.
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And they'd get it very hot. And he said for short bursts they would get it up to 30 times the heat of the surface of the sun.
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It'd have to be suspended in air because if it hit any of the sides it would just immediately disintegrate.
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And after it got this spinning they'd shoot atoms into it. And he said there was an anomaly when you shoot atoms and something happened.
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He described it to me. And he said nobody knows what that's all about. Why it does that. What it is. And he says
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I think I figured it out. And so we were having lunch in his home there in North Munich.
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And he said you want to see? I said sure. And so he went into the other room. He came back with about 6 pages of mathematics.
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And yeah there were numbers there but calculus symbols and what not. It was a mystery.
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And I said how long have you been working on this? He said well I got the first idea 17 years ago but I've been working on this for 8 years.
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I think he said 8 years. And I finished it this week. And he said if my proposal bears out it's going to change the way people understand nuclear physics.
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And I believe it did by the way. We left and came here. But I heard later that he resigned from being an elder because he went on the lecture circuit all over the world presenting his understanding of these matters.
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But again most important he was a Christian. World class scientist.
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And he believed in a young earth. He believed in creation. And he'd go around and teach students in school the creation account of Genesis as being historical and true as well as scientific.
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He was a brilliant man. A very humble man. But regarding his testimony when he got out to the
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Bay Area in the 60s he met Carroll who was a hippie of all places at a
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Timothy Leary conference in San Francisco. Some of you may recall Timothy Leary.
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He was a professor at University of Berkeley University of California at Berkeley. And he was really the one who promoted advocated recreational drug use particularly
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LSD. And he coined the phrase that really stood for that generation.
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Turn on. Tune in. Drop out. And they met at this Timothy Leary conference in San Francisco promoting
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LSD. Carroll immediately fell for Satish. Those were the days when the
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Beatles brought in a great interest and desire for eastern religion and mysticism.
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Hinduism. Buddhism. And Carroll found Satish. He was the real thing.
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The real gem. He was from India. Even though he didn't want to have anything to do with Hinduism.
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He was disillusioned. But Carroll would drag him to Hindu temples all around the
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Bay Area. I think it was in Berkeley that she drug him one day to a Hindu temple.
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And the reason was this young guru had taken a two year vow of silence.
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And that two year had come to an end and he was going to announce to his gathering the sum of his wisdom that he acquired through this two years of silence.
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And so Satish said they were all sitting in this big room. There were about 400 of them all sitting in a lotus position.
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Waiting for these words of wisdom to come out. So the guru came time to speak. And the first words out of his mouth to this large crowd was
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I've been a fool. Jesus Christ is the answer. And he preached
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Christ to them. Satish and Carroll were converted. He said about half the people were converted.
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And the guru later became a preacher down in, a pastor down in New Jersey of all things.
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But this is how Satish was converted. It was just an incredible work of God's grace.
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In a very unusual way. The word of God is powerful and when
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God is pleased to bless it to the conversion of people there's no stopping it. And we should have that kind of confidence.
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We're not trying to find people that are willing, less sinful, more open.
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We are to preach a gospel to every creature. And you'll be surprised.
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In fact that's the way the Lord works. He does things so that we're surprised by the conversions.
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Again, Jonathan Edwards wrote that book. A Narrative of Surprising Conversions.
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And he recounts what happened. Well again, in all our discussion regarding the new birth, what is important is that we ask ourselves, do
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I have evidence in my life that I've truly been born again? In speaking of sudden and remarkable conversions as I've just done, some begin to question whether or not they've been born again.
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They didn't undergo that transformative experience that others have related. Well it's very important for us to understand that this work of the
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Holy Spirit in causing a person to be born again doesn't evidence itself in people in the same way and to the same degree.
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Sometimes the transformation is quite remarkable as we recounted. But sometimes the creation of new life in the sinner is much more subtle.
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It begins in an imperceptible manner and the change in a person's character is only observable over time.
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Regeneration or the new birth can be like a small seed planted in the soil that begins to germinate an inch upward and then burst out of the earth into the clear light.
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This seems to be what Peter is suggesting in 1 Peter 1. Since you have purified your souls and obey the truth of the
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Spirit and sincere love of the brethren love one another fervently with a pure heart having been born again not of corruptible seed but incorruptible through the
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Word of God which lives and abides forever like a small seed.
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It's life changing but sometimes that change isn't immediately remarkably seen by others.
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It will be seen in time. You can count on it. But sometimes it's not as suddenly and immediately transformative as some of these other experiences we have encountered.
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The Lord Jesus alluded to this idea. He was actually speaking of the kingdom of God but I've read repeatedly how some of the older writers,
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Puritan and Spurgeon himself talk this is how God deals with individuals also. Jesus said, the kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground and should sleep by night, rise by day.
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The seed should sprout and grow. He himself does not know how for the earth yields crops by itself.
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First the blade, then the head. After that the full grain and the head but when the grain ripens immediately puts in the sickle because the harvest has come.
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Now he was, Jesus was talking about the imperceptible, what appeared to be small beginnings of the kingdom and how it's expanded over this church age.
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But many people take this as a metaphor, an analogy of how God oftentimes works in individuals as well.
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And it takes wisdom to recognize that the new birth has actually taken place in a person. For that which is true must be distinguished from false manifestations that look like new life but are not.
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And this is particularly true in children growing up under the influence of Christian parents. God can regenerate a baby.
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John the Baptist was in the womb of his mother filled with the Holy Spirit. The Lord can cause the new birth in a very young child.
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But there's no way of knowing whether that child is born again until you begin to see the evidence of it as that child grows.
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But time will bear out the presence or the absence of the influence of the Holy Spirit in someone's life.
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And again I've seen this subtle transformation in the lives of adults too. One begins to attend church there seems to be no evidence of true life there.
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But in time there's a little bit of movement you see in that person. As subtle as say the quickening of a baby developing in the womb of a mother there's all of a sudden some movement there.
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There's first seen perhaps a stirring of interest in spiritual matters. There's an increasing interest and desire to understand the
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Scriptures the Word of God. And then maybe a crisis occurs in that man's life and he chooses to obey
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God's Word rather than his own inclinations. And in time perhaps he begins to show himself as one of the steadiest most faithful of servants not in any ostentatious manner but he's characterized by stability and commitment and consistency in his faith.
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God blessed those kinds of people. He may only bring four thirty fold rather than a hundred fold.
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Jesus spoke about that right in the parable of the sower. But it's evident the man has been born of the
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Spirit. In the sermon of Charles Spurgeon that I gave out two weeks ago attached to the sermon notes he gave attention to this matter by focusing on the words of our
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Lord in John 3 verse 8 which read the wind blows where it wishes you hear the sound of it but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes.
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And so Spurgeon wrote the Spirit of God is like the wind. Oh well his operation is unexpected.
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The wind blows where it wishes so that you know not what wind to expect. I feel thankful when
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I remember that like the wind the Holy Spirit blows where he wishes for I cannot tell where next he may operate.
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Perhaps tomorrow he may save a prince. It would be an unexpected thing.
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Another day he may save some great backslider. Who knows? He may graciously work upon the more degraded part of the people or he may deal with certain of our great merchants and bring them to his feet.
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He that knows the work of the Holy Spirit must have learned to expect the unexpected. The last thing expected in Jerusalem, I love this statement, the last thing expected in Jerusalem was that Saul of Tarsus would be converted.
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But he was converted and you may now hope that the most violent opposer of the gospel may become a trophy of his of its power.
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That is the gospel power. And might not that same wind blow on you who come here simply to be a spectator of the solemnities.
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People would show up to Spurgeon's church just because he was so fun to listen to and watch. Willing to hear what the preacher has to say but not at all desirous to be affected by it.
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How often have we seen men and women the least likely the first to be impressed with this divine power.
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Oh heavenly wind blow where the feeble faith of your people has scarcely dared to think that you can come and where every influence has operated to shut you out.
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We should be mindful the Lord's hand is not shortened and it cannot save. The Lord is able to save anyone that he purposes to save and he may do so suddenly and thoroughly and quite remarkably against surprising conversions.
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He often works that way but not always. Spurgeon noted the Holy Spirit works in different ways, different degrees and different people against Spurgeon.
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Further the spirit of God is comparable to the wind because of the variety of his operations. The wind does not blow at all times alike.
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Soft and mild it brings the summer heat. Rough and rugged it makes us bind our cloaks about us as the sharp breath of winter chills us to the bone.
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The spirit of God works differently at different times according to the necessity of the case and according to his own will for he blows as he wishes as well as where he wishes.
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Thus you see that his work is not always of one kind. One gracious soul in other words he's been wrought upon by the grace of God.
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One gracious soul has gone out weeping broken hearted. The spirit of God has wounded his heart.
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Another has gone forth rejoicing in full salvation. It was the spirit of God. The withering work of the
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Holy Spirit is as necessary for our eternal benefit as when the spirit at another time opens the buds of those fair flowers which shed their perfume at the feet of love.
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Note then like the wind he varies in his modes of manifestation. Now dear friends concerning the wind our
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Savior says you cannot tell from where it comes and where it goes ye know that it comes yet we know that it comes from the east he's in England or the south and passes on its way goes towards the west.
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The text cannot mean that we do not know the direction of the wind or the direction which the spirit of God is moving for we do know that.
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We know that he is a power that makes for righteousness and for eternal life but then we do not know where any wind begins to blow.
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No one can explain where the north wind commences. The heathen had an idea about the wind rushing out of a cave or if it's being let loose from a bag.
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We know this is but a dream. We cannot imagine a place where the wind starts it on its journey and we do not know when the spirit of God begins to work in a person's heart or even in her own.
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Some persons are troubled because they cannot tell the day of their conversion. Let them not be troubled about that question.
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Even those who know that on such and such a day they took a decided step and the light burst in upon their spirit will find if they look back that a great deal of gracious experience went before their decision to prepare their minds for that final step.
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We do not know how early the divine processes begin within a soul. Our very parentage has something to do with it.
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That we were born of such and such godly parents is a part of the arrangement of divine grace. I do not think you can tell with regard to yourself when the first gracious thought was sown in you, when first you lived towards God.
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You can tell when you first perceived that you believed in God, but there was an experience before that.
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You cannot put your finger upon such and such a place and say, here the east wind began, nor can you say here the spirit of God began to work on me.
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And neither can we always tell what was the first process. Does a man pray first?
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Or believe first? If he prays without faith, he'll not be heard.
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Which comes first, repentance or faith? A repentance that has no faith is no repentance.
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A faith that has no repentance is no faith. These gracious products are like the spokes of a wheel, they all move at the same time.
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When the wheel of spiritual life moves, we cannot tell which grace in it moves first.
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And the processes of divine grace may, in your case, begin with a downcast soul, and in the case of another person, they begin with a lifting up of the holy faith.
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We cannot tell where it comes. And neither can we always tell the exact means of our receiving the spirit.
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You say it was by the minister's preaching, referring to himself, Spurgeon. Be grateful, but before that sermon, an unknown person did a deal of plowing within your heart.
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How would the one have sown, had not the other plowed? Many a man who thinks he's never done any good will find out at the last great day he did much more than he fancied, and that he accomplished an essential part of the work, though it remained hidden.
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You cannot tell from where it comes. That's a wonderful encouragement to servants of the
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Lord. The point we've been saying is that we should expect God to be, to do remarkable and sudden works in people's lives.
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And here I make mention of the document, A Narrative of Surprising Conversions by Jonathan Edwards, and he recounts what happened during the
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Great Awakening. The Lord swept through this, through the colonies, and he thinks there were 300 converted in his church in Northampton in just a few months.
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And a lot of the established churches, established preachers, took offense by it.
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They did not think God was in this. And so one of Edwards' purposes for writing this book,
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A Narrative of Surprising Conversions, was to show that it was of God. And so he set forth evidences of the new birth.
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And he first dismissed the arguments of a lot of these churches and preachers who said it can't be of God because of this reason or this reason, and he listed negative reasons.
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And I listed them here. We're not going to go through them. We don't have the time. We have to wrap things up. He listed them.
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Negative signs. And he said, just because these things happen, that doesn't mean it's not of the Spirit of God.
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But then he began to mention the positive signs. And now we're on page 11.
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Alright. The positive signs, or what are distinguishing scriptural evidences of a work of the
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Spirit of God. Now what Edwards was doing here, he says, as you stand back and assess these things, this is how you can tell that the
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Holy Spirit is bringing conversion to people. Here are the evidences. And he says, if you follow these principles, and examine yourself, and examine others in the light of this, you're not going to go wrong.
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And so having shown in some instances what are not evidences that a work wrought among a people is not a work of the
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Spirit of God, I now proceed in the second place as was proposed to show positively what are the sure distinguishing scripture evidences and marks of a work of the
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Spirit of God by which we may proceed in judging any operation we find in ourselves or seen among a people without danger being misled.
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And so what did he say are the essential evidences of a true work of the
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Spirit of God? There are only five. We're going to mention them quickly and then close. First, when the operation is such as to raise their esteem of that Jesus who was born of the virgin, was crucified outside the gates of Jerusalem, and seems more to confirm and establish in their minds and the truth what the
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Gospel declares to us of being the Son of God and the Savior of men, it's a sure sign it's from the
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Spirit of God. That's pretty simple. Top of page 12, second, when the
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Spirit that is at work operates against the interests of Satan's kingdom, which lies in encouraging and establishing sin and cherishing men's worldly lusts, this is a sure sign that it's a true and not a false
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Spirit. Tell you what, you use that test in a lot of churches today and you'll find much is a false
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Spirit, not the Holy Spirit because they're not concerned about addressing people's sins and calling them to repentance.
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All you have to do is believe, doesn't matter how you live, that's not of the Holy Spirit. Thirdly, the
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Spirit that operates in such a manner as to cause in men greater regard to the Holy Scriptures, the
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Bible, and establishes them more in their truth and divinity, that is the divine inspiration of the
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Scriptures, certainly is of the Spirit of God. Fourthly, another rule to judge of spirits may be drawn from those compilations given to the opposite spirits in the last words of verse 6, he's recounting 1
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John 4 verse after verse for these arguments, and he's basically saying that there is a
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Spirit of truth and there is a Spirit of error and if these people are promoting the Spirit of error, it's not a work of the
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Holy Spirit. If they're producing and promoting the truth that's in Jesus Christ, it is of the
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Spirit. And then fifth and last, he argues if that Spirit is a work among a people, operates as a
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Spirit of love to God and man, it sure sign is of the Spirit of God. And he quotes 1
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John to show this is true. A true work of the Holy Spirit always produces love for God and always produces love for man, mostly
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Christian men and women, but love for mankind as well. We desire everyone everywhere experience the forgiveness of sins and new life that we enjoy.
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And so the bottom line, again Edwards was attempting to defend and address the work that was taking place in New England among all these churches of the
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Great Awakening was truly of God. What's true of the church is also true of the individuals in the church.
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These five positive descriptions of a true work of the Spirit are validation tests of an individual who professes to be a
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Christian having been born of the Holy Spirit. The one who's born again by the Spirit is brought to esteem
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Jesus Christ as he's set forth in the Holy Scripture. Jesus Christ is the sole object of faith, that is the
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Savior. Faith is in God the Father through Jesus Christ, of course. And secondly, the one who's born again is brought to hate sin and he desires liberty from sin, even as he loves and desires to exhibit righteousness.
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And third, the one who's born again, the Holy Spirit is brought within that one a desire to magnify and understand the
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Holy Scriptures as the sole authority in matters of faith and practice. Fourthly, the one born of the
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Holy Spirit is brought to love the truth that is in God's Word and the truth that's in Jesus Christ.
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He hates error and he loves the truth. Paul wrote about some, they did not receive the love of the truth whereby they may be saved.
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With the work of the Holy Spirit there's a love for spiritual truth, biblical truth. And lastly, the one who's born by the
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Holy Spirit has been brought to love God and to love mankind, especially Christian men and women.
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Those are the evidences of a work of the Holy Spirit in a church and in individual lives.
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And if those are evidences present with you, well you can rejoice in that. If they're not, you probably ought to give attention to it and be concerned about it because there's a lot of false manifestations of Christianity today.
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Let's pray. Thank you Father for your Word. Thank you Father for the clarity that some in the past have been able to express and illustrate your
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Word and we pray our God that you would help us as we consider these matters. Thank you
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Father for your sovereign work of grace. If it were not for that, we would have never been saved.
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Clearly you are sovereign in this work and we just pray our God that you would do a great work of sovereign grace in these days.
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Help us Lord as a church to proclaim your Gospel far and wide and we pray that the blessed
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Holy Spirit would blow upon people and transform them utterly through the