God Regenerates the Heart — E.A. Johnston

The Necessity of the New Birth

I want to begin this message, friends, with the reading from the Word of God. Turn, if you will, in your Bibles to the Gospel of John, Chapter 3. This is a familiar passage of Scripture, but I implore you not to allow your familiarity with it deaden you from hearing what Jesus has to say regarding the supernatural act of regeneration upon the heart.

I believe, friends, that the most neglected doctrine in our pulpits at this hour is the doctrine of regeneration. Few preach its necessity. Fewer still are subjects of it. Allow me to read this striking passage of Scripture at this time.

It will be in verses 1 through 8, and it is my prayer that the Spirit of God will attend the reading of God's Holy Word. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born?

Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth. So it is, every one that is born of the Spirit.

I will stop there. Jesus is speaking to a learned ruler of the Jews, well schooled in the Mosaic Law, but this man Nicodemus was completely ignorant of the doctrine of regeneration. And it is my fear today, friends, that there are many learned men who occupy seminary chairs, who stand behind pulpits, and who hold evangelistic crusades, who are as ignorant about the doctrine of regeneration as old Nicodemus was.

Decisional Regeneration Versus God's Work

Most ministers today believe that a man makes himself a Christian. All he has to do is to decide for Jesus, cast his vote for Jesus, agree with John 3 .16, and then decide to become a Christian, walk an aisle, repeat a prayer, and join the church, and be baptized, and then you go to heaven.

But it isn't so, friends. It isn't so. That's what's known as decisional regeneration, where a man decides to make himself a Christian. But that false heresy goes against the very words of our Lord Jesus here in our text today.

Jesus declared, except a man be born of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. And that if a person wants to go to heaven, then that person must be born again. That person must be the subject of a work of grace upon the heart through the new birth, which is a supernatural act of God, whereby God takes the heart of stone and makes it a heart of flesh to be receptive to his truths.

Listen, friends. The biggest crime the church in America has committed in the last 60 years was the day she took salvation out of the hands of God and placed it in the hands of men. You make yourself a Christian today.

That's what the majority of pastors will tell you. But they are wrong, friends. Dead wrong. And if you follow their advice, you will still be dead in sin and on your way to hell, even if you are the chairman of the deacons.

The title of my message today is God Regenerates the Heart. And it's true, friends. It's true. I want to read you a quote from Morton Lloyd-Jones. And before I do, I want to share with you a story of what my good friend Richard Owen Roberts told me about Lloyd-Jones.

Many years ago, when Richard Owen Roberts was conducting his research on revivals and George Whitefield, he spent a great deal of time in the city of London. And while there, he often went to hear the doctor preach at Westminster Chapel in London.

I asked Dick Roberts about the preaching of Lloyd-Jones, and this is what he told me. He said that Morton Lloyd-Jones was one of the few men that when he preached, you were gripped with eternity because the Spirit of God was actively at work attending the preaching of Lloyd-Jones.

His preaching seared your conscience. Now, there are many today who have not had that privilege to actually hear a preacher with an anointing of the Spirit of God upon them. That's a rarity in our day.

But when Lloyd-Jones preached, you were confronted with eternity by God's Holy Spirit. Now, having said that, let me read us our quote from the doctor on the doctrine of regeneration. Here now are his words.

If we hold that we become regenerate because we have already believed, then we have to show why we need to be regenerated at all. The purpose and object of regeneration is to enable us to receive this new faculty, this ability to receive God's truth.

The doctrine of regeneration has a great deal to say about election and this doctrine of divine choice. Indeed, I go so far as to say that this doctrine should always be approached in terms of the doctrine of regeneration, which teaches that I need a new nature before I can begin to understand these things.

Did you hear that, friends? What Lloyd-Jones said lines up with my Bible. For concerning the teaching of regeneration, it is essential to spiritual vision. Jesus says this is so. Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Regeneration as a New Heart and Spirit

And this teaching of regeneration shows us that the new birth is of a new spirit in a person. This is seen in Ezekiel 36, 26, which states, A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.

Who gives it? Does your pastor give it to you? Does the evangelist give it to you? No, friends. God gives it to you for regeneration is of divine origin. John 1, 13 states,. Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And listen to this, friends. This work of grace upon the heart called regeneration is absolutely necessary to salvation. Titus 3, 5 declares, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.

Spiritual Death and God's Quickening

I want you to see something, perhaps for some of you for the first time. I want you to see the reality of a lost person who is dead in sin. My Bible describes the unsaved as dead in sin. Not only that, my Bible says it is God who quickens us from being dead in sin.

Listen to Ephesians 2, verses 1 and 2. And you have to quicken who were dead in trespasses and sins. Where in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.

That's what the apostle Paul has to say on this subject. God quickens a person who was dead in sin. Before they were subjects of regeneration, they walked according to the course of this world, as many church people still do.

They walked according to the prince of the power of the air, which is Satan. And you better believe, friends, that he is the prince of the power of the air. He commands the airwaves with his hellish music, which continually fills your minds and hearts and sways your lust to follow him.

He controls the airwaves of the television to make your living room an open sewer of moral filth and contamination. He controls the internet to lure you into websites like a spider weaves its web of deadly destruction to catch its dinner.

Satan is the prince of the power of the air. And a person who is unsaved lives in his kingdom, serves him as their master. And they are dead to spiritual things because they are dead people, dead spiritually in sin.

God must quicken you to give you the necessary spiritual vision to come to repentance to him. It says in my Bible about the woman Lydia of the New Testament that she was a person whom God opened her heart.

She didn't open her heart. God did it. How many pastors do I hear make the following statement during a gospel invitation? They'll say, just open your heart, friend, and accept Jesus. Just open your heart and you will be saved.

Listen, friends, a dead man cannot open his heart. Lazarus could not come out of the tomb by his own power. God had to raise him to life. Listen to these wise words on this subject from the Puritan Thomas Brooks.

When a man is in a deep lethargy, if you pinch him with pincers or prick him with needles, he feels it not. If you scourge him, he cries not. If you threaten him, he fears not. Or if you speak to him fair, he regards it not.

And now this is the condition of such that are in spiritual lethargy. Let the judgments of God be denounced and let the terrors of the law be preached. They tremble not. Let the flames of hellfire flash upon their souls.

They regard it not, for they are sermon-proof and judgment-proof and hell-proof. Listen, friends, God must regenerate the heart to enable spiritual vision to undertake repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

Just like Lloyd-Jones stated, the purpose and object of regeneration is to enable us to receive this new faculty, this ability to receive God's truth. That's it in a nutshell, friends. That's why you won't come to Christ, friend.

You are yet dead in sin. You need a new nature before you can begin to understand these things. Now some of you don't like that. Some of you don't believe that. Then take it up with our Lord Jesus who said, No man can come to me except the Father which has sent me.

Draw him. Jesus also said this, friends, in John 6, 65. Therefore said I unto you that no man can come unto me except it were given unto him of my Father. Listen, friend, God is the one who gives the grace of saving faith to a person.

The New Birth in Revival Preaching

If you wish to be saved and go to heaven when you die, then your sins must be washed in the blood and you must be born from above through the new birth. George Whitfield, when he came to New England in 1740, during the Great Awakening, his persistent theme was, You must be born again.

A Boston minister approached him after his sermon and asked, Mr. Whitfield, since you've been among us, all you preach is, you must be born again. When, sir, will you preach us a different sermon? To this, the great Whitfield replied, when ye are born again.

Whitfield faced bitter opposition, friends, in his day for preaching the doctrine of regeneration. Listen to his words taken from his journal dated Monday, May 28, 1739. Preached after earnest and frequent invitation at Hackney, in a field belonging to one Mr. Rudge, to about 10 ,000 people, I insisted much upon the reasonableness of the doctrine of the new birth and the necessity of our receiving the Holy Ghost in his sanctifying gifts and graces as well now as formerly.

God was pleased to impress it most deeply upon the hearers. Great numbers were in tears, and I could not help exposing the impiety of those letter-learned teachers who say we're not to receive the Holy Ghost, who count the doctrine of the new birth enthusiasm.

A Call to Recover Biblical Regeneration

Listen, friends, God shook two continents under Whitfield's mighty preaching of the doctrine of the new birth, and this should be our primary message in our day of sad spiritual declension in the church and moral downgrade in the nation.

But I fear most today will just hear a sermon on the love of God and hear an invitation to come to Jesus, make a decision that will allow them to join the church but still will keep them in the chains of sin.

This generation of inferheld church members mainly just made themselves Christians and they joined the church, but I fear they were never awakened to their lost condition, never convicted of sin, and yet are ignorant of a work of grace upon the heart, which is a supernatural act of God and regeneration.

Oh, friends, I pray that God will raise up a band of men who will preach the great doctrines of the Bible, which are ruin, redemption, repentance, and regeneration for your day and mine before it's too late.