Dallas Area Conference 1993-09 — William MacDonald

The New Birth and the Kingdom of God

There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, but no one can do those signs that you do unless God is with him.

Jesus answered and said to him, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he's old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?

Jesus answered, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born, that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.

The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone was born of the spirit. This morning we were talking at Garland about some of the wonders of God in creation as they were set forth in the last chapters of the book of Joel.

The Wonders of God in Creation and Redemption

What a wonderful God he is. It's absolutely the wonders of God in creation, the wonders of God in the human body, the masterpiece of God. We read that verse, who has put wisdom in the mind? And that just sent our minds reeling, boggled our minds.

Who has put wisdom in the mind? Everything God has made is filled with cargos of wonder, things that you don't you don't even see. You know, the molecule, the DNA molecule, you know better than I do, but I've been told that if you could unravel it and splice it end to end, it would go from the earth to the sun and back 400 times.

You didn't know you had such a wonderful body, did you? Complexity and diversity, single human self as there is in the entire stellar universe. That's marvelous, isn't it? And we could go on the wonders of God in not only the human body, but in the stellar universe and in every flower, in every force, the glory of the Lord.

I think there's something more wonderful than the wonders of God in creation. That's the wonders of God in redemption. Hard to believe that anything could be more wonderful than that. But just as God's natural creation is filled with cargos of wonder, so is his new creation.

And it'll take all eternity. To tell for the wonders of his redemption, you'll be there saved by his blood, I trust, and your testimony will be among those how he tracks you down and brought you to the fold.

And he's doing it all the time. One of my favorite authors is J .H. Jowett, and he says he believes that the wonders of the spiritual creation are greater than those of nature. He says the greatest wonders are not in nature, but in grace.

A regenerated soul is a greater marvel than the marvel of the springtime. A transfigured face is a deeper mystery than a sunlit garden. To read graces in a life once scorched and blasted by sin is more wonderful than to grow flowers in a cinder heap.

If we want to see the really surpassing wonders, we must look into a soul that has been born again and is now in vital union with the living Christ. Even the angels watch the site with ever deepening awe.

It's wonderful to see a people who are lost, depraved, dead in trespasses and sins, to think of the spirit of God coming upon them during the work of Christ and hear that sinner becomes a saint. And we're going to be thinking about some of those things that happen.

Salvation by Faith in Every Age

The varieties, the varieties of conversion experience are just as varied as the faces of the people. Of course, in one sense, everyone is saved in the same way. Everybody is saved by faith. Isn't that right?

In all dispensation, people in the Old Testament were saved by faith. God revealed himself to them in some way or another. They believe God. They were justified. Abraham was saved by believing that his seed would be as numerous as the stars in the heavens.

He was saved on the basis of the still future work of Christ, but he was saved by faith. He put his faith in the Lord and he was saved. This is a way of salvation in every age and for all people. And yet the steps leading to that definite act of faith are completely different in every single case.

Some are saved as adults. Some are saved as children. Some are saved from the gutter. Some are saved from the cathedral. Some are saved the first time they hear the gospel, not many. Some are saved the first time they hear the gospel.

Some are saved after years and years of entreaty by the spirit of God. And when we get to heaven, we'll realize that behind most every case of conversion, if not everyone, we'll find that somebody prays, bring out some spiritual lessons that will help us behind almost every case of conversion.

I think behind every case of conversion, we'll find that somebody prays. Shorkin up there in California brought up in a godless family. His father died when he was young. His mother is really a very hard soul.

I say that in kindness. She has no use for God or for Christ. And Eric was brought up without any Bible, without any religious training. There was a little girl in the neighborhood when he was a boy and her mother used to tell her Bible stories and she used to tell them to Eric.

And then time went on and Eric used to go to school and somebody left some chick tracts there in school. Chick tracts are kind of the gospel in almost cartoon style. I guess that's fair to say, cartoon style.

And Eric would read them and he'd read about hell. He said, well, I don't want to go there. But he didn't do anything about it. One day he and his brother and sister were walking down a mall there in Hayward and a young, a young wisp of a girl walked up to them.

She said, has anyone told you about Jesus? And the brother and sister started to laugh and mock. And Eric said, no. And she took him aside and she talked to him about the Lord. In his child's life, he was in trouble with the police, breaking and entering.

He was on drugs. He was on alcohol. And he had a motorcycle. He bought a classy motorcycle. It was the kind that you'd take to a show. And on the side, he had it painted. There was a picture of the devil, you know, the supposed picture of the devil, the horns and pitchfork and tail and all the rest.

And Eric used to ram around on that motorcycle. He was just a wild man. And as I say, he got in trouble with the police and things started closing in on him. I got a lot ahead of my story a little bit.

When he was a boy, his favorite game was playing jungle. And there was a ravine near his house. He used to love to pretend that that was a jungle and that he was playing it. But then he decided he better straighten up his life.

And he went to a junior college near us. And there was a Bible class there. And it was a there was a girl there that used to say, why don't you come to the Bible class? Bible class. Now, one day, the girl, she persisted, you know.

And she said, you know, the Bible class is meeting today. And why don't you come? Well, he went. Not whom some of you know, who's now serving the Lord in Spain. He was speaking that day at the Bible class.

He was speaking on hell. And at the end of the at the end of the Bible class, another one of our interns, Rick Dulles, who's now an elder in our assembly. He got he got Eric's side and he led him to Christ.

And, you know, the change in that fellow's life, a change you cannot explain apart from the sovereign miraculous thing, you know, he went down to Mexico in a gospel crusade with some young people. When he was down there, he said to Jim McCarthy, you know, he said, I'm trying to sell the motorcycle, but I can't sell it.

He said it won't sell. And Jim said, Eric, you're a Christian. Would you sell a motorcycle with the word hell bound on it? Eric, I never thought of that. Well, he couldn't get home fast enough. And when he got home, he started to work on it.

He started to I don't know whether he used a fine sandpaper or what he used or steel wool. Anyway, he was able to get the devil and hell bound off the motorcycle. So that it was the exact same as the original finished on that motorcycle.

There wasn't a scratch. And he said, God is working in my life. That was the first way in which he saw God working in his life. The second was the next day the motorcycle sold and he got his full part of his family down in Curitiba, Brazil.

Now, you explain that to me on natural terms. From hell bound to heaven bound. Why did I bring that in? We were talking that almost everybody gets saved. One day his mother, his mother talked to me on the phone, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, Eric, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He never did finish college. I'd say, oh, I'd be so proud to have a son like Eric, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. He never did finish college. You know, you got to say a good word. But one day she was in a particular talkative mood and she told me that Eric's grandfather was an evangelical pastor in Philadelphia.

Eric never knew it. And she said when she and Eric's father got married, the grandmother gave them. And don't you think that grandmother and grandfather pray for that next generation? Skip the generation.

Grace, skip the generation. And then it came back in again. I think that's one trophy of grace. Dear Eric is and his wife for lovely children down there. His heart really isn't in Curitiba. His heart is up in the Amazon jungles.

That's where he wants to serve the Lord. Eventually, up in the jungle, back to his boyhood, doesn't it? But God was preparing him even then before grace entered. Let me tell you about the hippie who became happy.

The Spirit's Sovereign Work in Conversion

The wind blows where it wishes. You hear the sound of it. You cannot tell where it comes from or where it's going. So is everyone that's born in the earth. Some years ago, there was a fellow down in Palm Springs, California, and he was living in a cave and burnt out.

He was burnt out on sex, burnt out on dope, and burnt out on alcohol. And you can only go so long that way. And there he sat in the cave, contemplated suicide. There was nothing more. And as he sat there in the cave, God, if there is a God, reveal yourself to me.

Don't I'm going to take my life. In ten minutes, a young fellow was walking by the mouth of the cave. He looked in and he saw him and said, Hi, mind if I speak to you about Jesus? I just about break down and cry when I think of that.

Mind if I speak to you about Jesus? He led him to the Lord. Isn't that wonderful? Let's draw a lesson from this. John 7, 17. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself.

I have never known a person who prayed that prayer in sincerity. Who didn't have a revelation of God soon after, I've never known the person. This is going to shake you, you're going to say, oh, boy, that McDonald's getting pretty extreme.

But there's an elder in the assembly in the Fairhaven Assembly in San Leandro. His name is Mike Osmond. And Mike was attending a liberal. He and his wife were attending a liberal Presbyterian church there in San Leandro.

And he wasn't saved. His wife was saved and she attended the Bible study fellowship there. And she was growing in the things of the Lord. Spirit of God was working in Mike's heart and he was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with life.

He had a good job, he had a good home, he had everything that you could want. One day he said to Pam, he said, Pam, I just have to leave you. I can't put up with it anymore. She said, wasn't exactly what he expected.

He said, you've got to go, you've got to go. That night, dear Mike sat up all night in the family room, all night in the family room. And he said to the family room, end of the morning, reveal yourself to me.

He no sooner prayed that he was looking out in the yard and with a bird house there in the yard suspended by a rope from the prayer had no sooner left than that birdhouse crashed to the ground in a million pieces.

And it was no wind. What do you think of that? Can God control a rope? He did. But that spoke to Mike. Just that simple thing spoke to Mike. Woke up, got up, dressed. He said, Pam, could I go with you to the Bible study fellowship?

Found the Lord. And he's an elder in the assembly. That in human terms, you can't explain it in human terms. There's no simple explanation of it. That's the key. That's the thing I want to bring out here.

Reading Scripture Instead of Arguing

The wonders of God in redemption. Pray. If you are dealing with people and they mean business for God, challenge them to say that. Oh God, if there is a God, reveal yourself to him. Does it every time?

Don't be afraid of it. He had gone to MIT and he had a roommate there at MIT who was an agnostic, a critic, a Bible critic, you know, and he used to come to to Harry with all kinds of Bible contradictions, alleged Bible contradictions and this sort of thing.

Harry got kind of tired and he said to him, have you ever read the Bible? But he says, look, before you ever come back to me with any more contradictions, he said, I want you to have the intellectual honesty to read through Paul's letter to the Romans.

And he read Paul's letter to the Romans and he got the answers to some of his questions, but he got a dozen more questions. He read it again. And the same thing happened. He got answers to questions, but he got a lot more questions and he read it again.

He never came back to Harry till he'd been born again, alone, through reading the word of God. Wonderful. What lesson do I draw from this? Salvation is based upon the word of God. Get people to read a single verse of scripture is worth more than a thousand arguments and all your clever arguments are not going to avail you people to read the Bible.

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the. And this has happened very many times down through the history of the years where men who oppose the gospel most violently, finally, the harder they come, the harder they fall.

Conversions Through Reading the Word of God

Saul of Tarsus, a good illustration of that years ago, the ex governor of Arizona, Robert Ingersoll, an Ingersoll said to write a book. I'll write a book so devastating against Christianity that it'll settle in that I want for all.

And Wallace said, I will. He was going to devastate the Christian faith in this once for all to read the Bible. I don't know what the Bible said. Worth it. God. He went to his wife and he said, I'm going to be a couple.

She's going to write it from the opposite. And he did. He got saved and he wrote, then her. Then her story. And there's so many things like this in Scripton, Lord Middleton in England years ago. Same thing.

Oh, yes, they were going to end the Christian faith. And one of them said, well, I'll take the conversion of Saul. If I can disprove the conversion assault, that's it. The other said, I'll take the resurrection of Christ.

And so they covenanted together and they went on their way and they started working on it. And they both ended up as believers in the Lord Jesus and both wrote books on the subject, defending the Christian faith.

And then, of course, some of you are familiar with the book who moved the stone by Frank Morrison. That's not his real name, but that's the name of the book who moved the stone. And the subtitle of that book is the book that refused to be written.

I think that's beautiful. The wonders of God in redemption. So I think of God and I say this most reverently is that the great checker player moving the checkers on the board, you know, you do it. He can do it just to bring people to a saving knowledge of him.

A young fellow, he lived in New York and it was right after the Vietnam War and he was disgusted and anti-American at the moment. One day he said, I'll give my country one last chance. I'm going to hike across America.

And so being winter coming on, he started to take a southerly course and he got as far as Mobile, Alabama. And some friends there asked him to go to the wildest party he had ever been to. But as he went around, he was interested in going to that party.

But as he went around town, he saw signs for a revival. He called it Jesus joining. And he had never had any use for that. But anyway, he went and he thought he, you know, played the actor. He said, well, I'll take my camera and get some good pictures.

You know, he was going to write it all up for National Geographic. Terrifyingly enough, the only seat he could get was in the very front row. And he went there and the preacher's name was Jim Robeson.

And he preached the gospel at the end. He gave an invitation and 250 people gathered at the front of that auditorium. And Peter wrote, was that me standing there? He said, yeah, that was me. And he said, he said, no, I want to make this clear.

I want to know that you acknowledge that you're a guilty sinner, that you receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your substitute, the one who paid for your sin. Do you do that? And 250 people said, and he went over again.

He went over the gospel again with them. And Peter walked out of the building that night. A new man. It's marvelous, isn't it? A lot of people get saved when they have no intention of getting saved. That's how wonderful God is in his sovereignty.

Get no intention of being saved. They are saved. But, you know, he wrote it up. Some of you read it, maybe some of you have the book Rock Across America. He wrote it up for National Geographic and he has testimony in there.

This is clear as can be. And they said, oh, well, it's a very good article. Please leave out this. He said, leave that out. Leave out the article. We wouldn't stand for it. They put it in. It was one of the three most popular issues that National Geographic has ever put out.

I personally wrote to the editor and said, look, this is America at its best. And he wrote back and said, thank you very much. Wonderful, isn't it? And he pictured himself as he pictured it as this weather vane.

He said that night he went to the wildest party he'd ever been to. The gospel of the new man, the wonders of God and redemption. One of my favorite stories, of course, has to do with with the man who bombed Pearl Harbor.

Mitsuo Fushida and the Power of Gospel Mercy

His name was Mitsuo Fushida. He came and delivered those bombs. And you know what it did to the United States Navy there in Pearl Harbor. And he radioed back to Tokyo and he was just ecstatic. No wonder.

Practically put us out of commission as far as the Pacific Ocean was concerned. But then, you know, the tides of war changed and pretty soon America was on the victory side and Japan was defeated and he was furious.

And Mitsuo Fushida decided he'd bring the United States before a war court. Try them for war crime. And in order to do that, he had to amass material, didn't he? So he started to interview war prisoners from this country, people who had been held in this country, kept hearing about a dear lady that came to visit the Japanese prisoners.

And she would bring cakes and she would bring cookies and she would bring all kinds of little gifts to them and called the New Testament. And that wasn't what Mitsuo Fushida wanted to hear. He wanted to hear about atrocities.

He wanted to hear cruelty. And these men would say to this lady, why do you do this? We are enemies. Why do you show us this kindness, bringing cookies and candies and cakes and all the rest of it? And all she ever said, all she ever said was it's because of a prayer my parents prayed before they died.

Her parents had been missionaries in the Philippines and they had been killed by the Japanese. That's all she ever told them, because of a prayer before they died. And the goodness, you talk about God moving the church, God moved the New Testament into the hands of Mitsuo Fushida.

I've got to read it. And he read Matthew, and it really didn't, as we say, it didn't race his motor, and he read Mark, and he didn't get anything out of it. And he read Luke, and he came to the words of the Lord Jesus.

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. The Holy Spirit revealed to Mitsuo Fushida that that was a prayer those parents prayed before they were killed. And he got down on his knees and he trusted the Lord Jesus as his savior.

And he's in heaven this afternoon. And you're saved by the grace of God. You're going to meet him someday, the man who bombed Pearl Harbor. You tell me the wonders of God and redemption. Listen, heaven's going to be filled.

God's Patience and Repeated Gospel Invitations

Words will be there among them. If you have the brand mark of redemption on you, I think it's absolutely wonderful. I never get tired of thinking about it. After a meeting, Mr. Moody was preaching, Dwight L. Moody, and shows you the long suffering of God.

He's not willing that any should perish. And that night he was preaching on Matthew 633. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. And at the close of the meeting, a man came up to him, said, Mr. Moody, years ago, I left home.

And he said, my mother put a Bible in my bag. And she made me promise that I would go to church every Sunday. And he said, Mr. Moody, I opened that Bible on the front cover. He said with these words, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.

And he said, I went to a faraway place. And he said that first Sunday kept my promise to my mother. I went to the church and he said, the man was preaching on Matthew 633. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.

He said, the spirit of God was tugging at my heart. I said, no, I've got to go and make good in business. I've got to go and make a name for myself. And he said, I walked out of the meeting. He said, the next week I went to a different church.

And he said, the preacher got up and he gave us his text, Matthew 633. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. And he said, Mr. Moody, I knew that God was speaking to me.

But he said, I was filled with excuses. And he said, I left. He said, the third Sunday I went to a different church. I said, what do you think the subject was? Matthew 633. He said, Mr. Moody, I've gone to church.

I've never heard that verse since then. He said, tonight you got up and you preached on Matthew 6. That there was, that the door of salvation was still open. And that night the penitent entered in. God's patience had extended for over 40 years.

And at a mother's prayer, a mother's here today and her grandmother's here today. Some of you are aware, husbands, don't give up. It's absolutely wonderful. Many of you know the name George Cutting. You know that name, don't you?

George Cutting and the Call to Proclaim Christ

He was the author of Safety, Certainty and Enjoyment. If you haven't read it, you should. It was really through the writings of George Cutting that I really got help on the subject of assurance of salvation.

One day he was doing itinerant work in a little village. The Spirit of God seemed to say to him, the Spirit of God seemed to say, just shout out loud. Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.

Even to tell the story, I think if it happened to me, I'd think, Lord, there's nobody around here. There's no, what a fool I'd make of myself. Lonely, quiet street, crying out, behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.

But he did it. I think it's wonderful to be in close touch with the Lord like that, don't you? To be a fool for Jesus' sake. So he did it. Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.

Spirit of God said, say it again. And he said it again. Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. He had that impression that he should repeat it. And he did. Six months later, he was in that town and he went door to door, knocking on the door.

And he went to a house. And a dear lady came to the door and she asked her about her spiritual condition. And she told him that she was a child of God who faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he said, how did it happen?

She said, one day I was in my house. She said, I was under deep conviction of sin. She said, the Spirit of God was just plowing me up. Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. And she said, if that's you, Lord, say it again.

And he said it came back the second time. Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world. What lesson can I learn from that? And personally, be sensitive to the prompting of the Spirit of God.

If he tells you to do something, do it. Even if it makes you look foolish. It was well worthwhile, wasn't it? Years ago, in England, there was a man, a very unpretentious man. Nobody paid much attention to him.

His name was Thomas Bilney, and they just called him Little Bilney. And he used to go to listen to Bishop Latimer, the great Bishop Latimer. And he went to the great bishop and he said, Bishop Latimer, may I make my confession to you?

Of course, Latimer thought he was going to come and confess his sins. So he confessed his Savior. He would say, through the testimony, Little Bilney. Unconventional evangelism. Sovereign in all his way.

Abraham Kuyper and Unexpected Conversion

What a wonderful God we have. The wonderful God of redemption. Something similar like that happened in Holland some years ago. A man named Abraham Kuyper, very prominent in the Holland church there, the Reformed Church in Holland.

And he had graduated from the University at Leiden with honors in theology. And he was carrying on a pastorate there in a little church. And there was a dear woman in that audience, and she accosted him one day.

And at the end of the service, she said to him, she said, Dr. Kuyper, that was a fine sermon. It's unusual candor, wasn't it? You should have directed by the Spirit of God that he was born again. He trusted the Lord Jesus.

He became he became prime minister of Holland after that and became a real servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Virgin tells about two men that were on guard down in Gibraltar. Apparently in Gibraltar, there is honeycombs with corridors and all the rest of the British were occupying it.

And these two men were were on guard down there. And the man over here was a born-again Christian. And way down at the end of the corridor, there was another man and he was having soul trouble. The born-again Christian was there and he was he was meditating on the precious blood of Christ with meditation.

And all of a sudden, an officer appeared out of the darkness and said to him, the password frightened and overcome. He said, the precious blood of Christ. And then he recovered himself and gave the proper.

But, you know, those words, the precious blood of Christ, winged their way down the corridor to that man down at the end to get converted. He was saved through those words of the guard caught off guard in Gibraltar.

Really wonderful. Just one more concern, a man named William McKay. I guess in Scotland, you would have called him McKay and brought up in a godly Scottish home, leaving home. His mother did what mothers did in those days.

William McKay and the Transforming Word

She gave him a Bible. She put his name in it and she put a verse script. And he went out and he he was determined to become a successful doctor. But in the process, he lived a very dissolute life and immoral life and was drinking very heavily.

In fact, he pawned the Bible. He became successful in medicine and he worked his way up to be the head of a hospital there in Edinburgh. One day they brought in a man that had been horribly mangled in an accident.

And he was on duty there at the time. And the man said to him, how long do I have? And he said, oh, I'll fix you up, you know, and you'll be as good as new. He knew very differently. But that's what he said to me.

I'm going to fix you up and and we'll get you on the road soon again. The man said, seriously, he said. Now, I know the Lord Jesus Christ is my savior. He said, I'm going to heaven. He said, how long do I have?

The doctor said, two or three hours. Please take, have somebody take a check from my pocket to the landlady and pay her and get me the book. The doctor gave instructions for that to be taken. And then the doctor went on his round in the hospital.

And two or three hours later, he came back and he said to the nurse, how is that man that was mangled in the accident? He said he expired just a little while ago. They said, what about the book? She said, it's under his pillow.

And William McKay went and lifted up the pillow and took out the Bible and looked there with his name. With his mother's signature at the birth of scripture. He couldn't get back to his office fast enough.

He fell on his knees, cried out to God for forgiveness and for salvation and became an imminent servant of the Lord and wrote the book, Grace, Grace and Truth, I think it's called Grace and Truth. The wonders of God and redemption difference.

That is natural. It's supernatural. The new birth is a marvelous, miraculous, supernatural work of the spirit of God. The God's work and redemption is even greater than his work in creation. That's something the Lord encouraged us to go forth, to pray, to distribute the word of God, to speak a word for Jesus and be sensitive to the prompting of the Holy Spirit of God.