Gospel Meetings-Shannon Hills 06 — Worth Ellis

The New Birth in John 3

Our reading tonight in our Bible from the Gospel according to John, chapter 3, the third chapter of the Gospel according to John, and our reading commences at verse 1. John 3, 1, and shall we pray? Holy Father, we lift our hearts to thee tonight in thanksgiving and in gratitude for the gift of the Son of thy love.

We thank thee tonight, Father, for the blessedness of the knowledge of sin forgiven. We thank thee that through thy word it might please thee this night to reveal this blessed truth to many hearts here.

Honor the word, Father, we beseech thee, and glory for thy well-beloved Son. Amen. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, the 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 didst, 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 is every one that is born of the Spirit.

Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master or a teacher of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen, and ye receive not our witness.

If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

May God bless to us tonight the reading of his own word. If you are here tonight in our service and you are concerned about becoming a Christian in the scriptural sense of the word, if you would like to know that all of your sins are forgiven, that you are justified in the sight of God and ready for heaven regardless of when the time might come for your departure, I have some good news for you.

This can be your present and joyous possession before you leave this building tonight. You can know without a shadow of a doubt that every one of your sins are completely and eternally forgiven, that you have been reconciled to God through the death of his Son, that you have been justified freely by the redemption that is in our Lord Jesus Christ, and that's through the grace of God.

You can have all of this absolute assurance of heaven without joining the Church, without being baptized, without paying, without praying, or without playing. Every bit of it can be yours without any of these things, but you cannot have the first one of these, let alone all of them, unless you are born again.

And that only authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, who says in verse 5, "...except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.". And furthermore, in verse 3, "...except a man be born again, not only will he not enter, but he shall not even so much as get out, teeny, iny people of the kingdom of God.".

And that's the solemn authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, "...except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.". Now, I would like to state the burden of my message tonight. In other words, what I'm shooting at.

In case I get mixed up on the way and get lost, you will at least know what I was trying to get across to you when I started. And it's this, that just as physical life has a moment, a very definite and specific moment of beginning, also spiritual life, that fits us for heaven and to enjoy the celestial realms of glory with the Lord Jesus Christ and all of the redeemed throughout the countless ages of eternity, must have a very definite and a specific beginning.

You won't slip up on it, and neither will it slip up on you. It will be the direct result of an intelligent decision to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. An abundant testimony to this blessed truth is found in Holy Writ, that eternal life and the forgiveness of sin is always inseparably associated with birth.

Receiving Christ and Becoming Children of God

Now turn, please, to the first chapter of this gospel, and I want you to notice with me three verses. Speaking in verse 11 of the first chapter, we read these words concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice very carefully now, He came unto His own, or His own things, and His own received Him not, His own people.

That is, the Jews rejected Him. But notice, in verse 12, as many as received Him, to them gave He power, or the right to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name, which were born.

And align that phrase now, to as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become the children of God, even to them that believe on His name, which were born, not of blood. That means you can't inherit it, nor of the will of man.

No man can make you a Christian, nor of the will of the flesh, rather. That is, you can't make yourself a Christian. And thirdly, nor of the will of man. No one can confer Christian faith upon you. But tie these two statements together, dear friends, will you?

First, to as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become the children of God, even to them that believe on His name, which were born of God. Three negatives, one positive. To as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become the sons of God, even to them that believe, which were born of God.

Now, I do not understand how anyone can possibly fail to see that to become a real child of God and be a member of the family of God is inseparable, at least with a birth, from God. In Galatians chapter 3, the Bible says we all become the children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

There is not a more spurious doctrine out of the very pits of hell than the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. I have some brothers, but I only have two that are alive, and they are the only living male members of the whole human race that are brothers to me today, in that sense of the word, because they were born into my family.

I believe in the fatherhood of God in relation to His creation, inasmuch as He is the God in whom we all live and move and have our beings. But the fatherhood of God, in connection with the Bible sense of the word, is something we enter into through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, because notice this, to as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in His name, which were born of God.

You can't get to heaven without being born again, friend, never. You'll miss it ten million miles if you fail to experience this glorious truth of the new birth. In the first epistle of John, you needn't turn to it, but I'd like to read you a phrase or two from this epistle.

And this epistle of John has to do primarily with the family of God. He uses such words as these in writing to the Christians. John says, "'My little children,' notice the language, "'My little children,' and again he says, "'Little children,' and over and over again he uses phrases like that.

Seven times in the first epistle of John we find these words, "'Born of God,' two times the word, 'Begotten of God,' and it's exactly the same thing, "'Born of God' and 'Begotten of God.'. When the beloved apostle Peter, who in connection with his restoration, or his being turned again, sought to strengthen his brethren to carry out his declining commission, he wrote his epistle to Christians at large, and he said, "'As you born vain, teach ye therefore the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.'".

James, in his epistle, chapter 1, in verse 18, says, speaking of God, "'Of his own will beget he us with the word of the truth,' and again we read in 1 Peter that we are born again, not of the incorruptible seed, but by the incorruptible, by the word of God that liveth and abideth forever.".

Now this overwhelming volume of evidence substantiates our claim tonight that not the first son of Adam's race will ever know their sins are forgiven, will never have peace with God, will never be sure of heaven, and never enjoy eternal rest with the Lord Jesus and the host of the redeemed, except you have been born again.

Jesus’ Command to Nicodemus

May I remind you of these words again? Notice, will you please, in John 3 .3, "'Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Of a truth,' of a truth, that's a double positive. The Lord Jesus is seeking to emphatically emphasize this truth.

Here comes this man, Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews, a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Supreme Court of the days of our Lord Jesus Christ, a teacher of the Mosaic law to the nation of Israel.

And he being a teacher, and here is the Son of God who is a great teacher, and I can imagine that this dear man came to the Lord Jesus because he thought perhaps we might swap a little of our knowledge.

And he came to the Son of God by night, and he said, Master, others may doubt you, but I know you've convinced me that you're a teacher come from God, for no man could possibly do the miracles that you're doing if God were not with him, and the Son of God, never for one moment would he think of accepting such a compliment from the hand of a man who was on his way to hell without setting him right.

And with those all-seeing eyes of his, and with love and compassion, he looked right down into the very depths of the heart of this Pharisee, this good, self-righteous, moral, religious man, and here is what he said, Nicodemus, what you need, my friend, is not education but regeneration, for man cannot apprehend by the intellect the new birth.

The ritual truth is always apprehended by faith. The Bible says, by grace are you saved through faith, and that knowledge of yourselves, it is the gift of God. And a very elementary and simple definition of faith is to believe God and to take him at his word, although you can't understand it.

Now, if I spent all my time scratching this noggin of mine trying to figure out the truth of the gospel, I wouldn't have any time left to enjoy preaching it. Why, if you ask me tonight, Worth, why does God love such a hell-deserving sinner like you?

I'd say, friend, I haven't the least idea. Why did he send his son to the cross to die there such a shameful death that a poor, wicked, infidel wife, you might say, I don't know, all I can say is that God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

And the only one word I know that answers all of the hard questions is this word, love. Herein is love. Not that we loved him, but that he loved us, since his son into the world to be the propitiation for our sins, and not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

God committeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Oh, the simplicity, oh, the grandeur and the splendor of the gospel message, that thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt, emphatic, be saved, present possession right now.

If you believe with all your heart that Jesus Christ was crucified for your sins and was raised again for your justification, God says you have eternal life. And all of this can be yours only if you experience this glorious truth called the new birth.

Now, I notice in this text alone that we read together tonight, this section, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 times the word, born, is used in the Nicodemus sermon that the Lord Jesus preached to this self-righteous Pharisee.

Born eight times, except the man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Now, may I ask you a very simple question? As you sit there tonight and listen to this message, what should you ask yourself?

What do you think would be the best question you could put to your own self? Would it be, have I joined the Church, have I been baptized, do I give a tenth of my money to the Lord, do I pray enough, do I read the Bible enough?

I ask you, friends, in the light of this overwhelming volume of undeniable evidence, isn't the only sensible question that you should be found asking yourself tonight is, have I been born again? For the Lord Jesus said, except the man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Why and How a Person Must Be Born Again

Now, you know, there are two questions, so far as I can see, in connection with this narrative, and upon these two rests the entire fabric of the subject of the new birth. Now, the questions asked and the correct answers given will show us what it means to be born again.

Now, the first question he asked, obviously, was why. That's inferred in verse 6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Now, Nicodemus had said in verse 4, how can a man be born when he is old?

So he asked him, first of all, why must I be born again? Secondly, how can I be born again? Nicodemus was an honest sinner, and I tell you, God does not object at all to your questions, so long as your questions are honest and aboveboard.

Any sinner who will receive the word of God in a good and honest heart will be saved, before we leave this meeting tonight, will be born again of the incorruptible, saved by the word of God, that liveth and abideth forever.

And if you have an honest question tonight, why not like Nicodemus say, Lord, why must I be born again? Why? The Lord had convinced Nicodemus of his authority as a teacher, but the very moment, with his all-seeing eyes, he proved right into the very vital being of this man, Nicodemus.

He struck a new chord. He awakened an interest that this man had never known before. If a man like me, a member of the Jewish Supreme Court, a teacher of the law of Moses, a ruler of the Jews whose life apparently was absolutely aboveboard, irreproachable, if that will not qualify me to enter the kingdom of God, then Lord, why?

Why must I be born again? Now, in verse 6, the Lord Jesus gets right down to the very heart of this question, and he tells Nicodemus this, the reason you need to be born again, Nicodemus, is simply because that which is born of the flesh is flesh.

Now on Orlando's word, and in the epistle to the Corinthians, we read that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. In other words, friends, it's just as simple as this. Just as you have had birth in the natural order of things which fit you for life on this planet here, you must have a new birth from God to fit you for life hereafter.

Strange to say, many, many sinners who entertain a very fond hope of getting to heaven can't even spend thirty minutes in the presence of a child of God. And if you tie their hands behind their back and train them to a seat in a prayer meeting, they'd be a raven maniac before an hour was gone.

And yet, they feel that all they've got to do is to do the best they can and, ah, get to heaven. Well, bless your heart, sinner, through the countless ages of eternity, there will be one long, mighty crescendo of praise and glory of being astride to the Son of God in one long, unending, never-ceasing prayer meeting in heaven.

Now, if you could get there, see, and have to live through eternity in an atmosphere like that with the same kind of nature you've got in you right now, I respectfully submit to you that heaven will be hell.

Would you agree? In other words, you must be born again because you must be capacitated to enjoy heaven. What good would it do you to have your sins forgiven here and go to heaven and not be able to enjoy it throughout all eternity?

Now, has there ever been a circumstance, naturally speaking, on this earth in which you have found yourself that the physical members of your being with which God endowed you by natural generation have not equipped you to meet that situation?

All factors considered being equal, of course. The same is true in the spiritual realm. Physical birth fits you for life here, spiritual birth fits you for life in heaven. Heaven to you would be hell without being born again, and that's it.

Well, of course, you didn't worry about that. You won't get there anyway unless you're born again. Now, the reason why you must be born again, the Lord Jesus said, that which is born of the flesh is flesh.

Now, sometimes the Bible, by the word flesh, simply means meat, just like that you see here, or just like this. Again, the Bible means all humanity when it says flesh. For example, as in Genesis 6, 13, the Lord says, the end of all flesh has come before me.

He was about to bring down the deluge, you remember, and destroy all the living creatures on the earth except Noah and his family and the animals that went into the ark. Sometimes He means meat, sometimes the Bible, by the word flesh, means humanity.

But other times, and often in the New Testament especially, when you find the word flesh, it means neither humanity in general, nor meat like this, but it simply means the corrupt principles and the depraved faculties of our fallen nature.

Regeneration and the Transformed Life

And that's what the Lord Jesus Christ meant here. Within this bosom of mine, I have a heart. And my heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things. Who can know it? God knows my heart. Before I became a Christian, my heart was absolutely under the control of Satan.

If Satan said curse and swear, I did it. If he said drink, I drank. If he said gamble, I gambled. If he said fight, I fought. But now that I have been born again by the Spirit of God, I still have that nature within me.

But the glorious principle of the Christian faith through regeneration and the new birth is this, that all of the natural tendencies and propensities of the human heart are subjugated by and subordinated to the new nature.

And that's what makes a man a new creature in the Lord Jesus Christ. The most ridiculous and preposterous assumption that a man could possibly be guilty of is to assume that he's a child of God if his life has not been absolutely, erratically, completely transformed.

The Bible says, therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. All things pass away and all things become new in that man's life. And I like that verse. Now, theologians, bless your heart, I know it's a positional verse.

It speaks of being taken out of the family of Adam and placed in the family of Christ where all things are new. But you will have to, in turn, grant me this, that every positional blessing is supposed to be exhibited practically in our daily walk.

Therefore, if any man is a genuine Christian, all things must pass away out of his life. God forbid, said Paul in Romans 6, how that certain such ones as we who have died two sins live no longer therein.

And I'm going to stick my short neck out and not much to be cut off in a way and say it's impossible for a genuine child of God to live in sin. Don't believe it. Set your heart tonight, professing believer, and see whether you've been born again by the Spirit of God and the Word of God or whether you've been deceived by Satan into believing that you're a child of God.

And if you're constantly faced with all the trials and the vicissitudes of life, and all these temptations come crowding in upon you, and you have absolutely no victory and no defense and no bulwark thrown up against them, then you have not the Holy Spirit of God living within you.

When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Bible says, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up the standard against him, and a child of God can live a victorious life, thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in pride.

But your problem, my friend, may not be one primarily of the practical side of Christianity, but most likely you've never gotten off to a good start. You've never been born again. That may be your problem tonight.

And so, the Lord says to Nicodemus, that which is born of the flesh, in other words, this evil, corrupt, depraved nature of mine that lives in this heart of mine, that can never be anything else. See?

Now, here's something you need to learn in connection with becoming a Christian. Nowhere in the Word of God do we read that God ever intended to improve on this whole nature of mine. As a matter of fact, the Bible teaches me that it's going to become more and more corrupt as the days go by, and the older I get in the Lord, the worse it is.

I never forget once, I don't know whether I was comfortable or whether I was confounded, but I was suffering under the flesh, you know, and I just learned after I got to be a Christian that I had two natures.

You know, sometimes people who get saved think when you become a Christian, well, it's all over, the sky's the time of the sky, and it's like a bed of roses. No more trouble. Well, bless your heart, if you've been saved that long, you better watch out because you're going to bust a skin on your nose when you hit the ground when you come down, and you're going to find out after the initial ecstatic joy of your conversion to Christ, when the first, that blessed joy and assurance of sin forgiven floods your soul, you're going to find out that you've still got the old nature that you had that kept your nose to the grindstone of seeing all days of your life.

And this dear old brother, I don't even remember who he was, he was a patriarch of some kind, came to our church. Yeah, oh, he was a fine old gentleman. He'd been saved 60 or 70 years, if I remember correctly.

And I said, here's a man who will give me some help. And I was like Paul, all wretched men that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of corruption? And I was just burned down under the stench of the fact that I had this filthy, miserable, depraved flesh still within me.

I went to this dear old brother one night for the message. I said, brother, look, how old do you have to get before you get through with this awful, putrefying, stinking, rotten mess of this flesh inside of me?

It worries me to death all day long. He said, well, brother, I'm afraid I can't give you much help. I'm afraid I can't give you much help. I've been saved 60 years now, and mine's worse than it was the first day I was saved.

Oh, let's remember this. It's with you. It's with you. This evil flesh. The Lord Jesus said that which is born of the flesh is flesh. He's not going to improve upon that. That flesh was condemned when Jesus died on the cross and forever set aside.

That's the Edenic order of things. And then your birth is a bringing in of something that's entirely new. It's the preaching within me, the Holy Spirit of the living God, and that's regeneration. That's the motor dynamic of a new life.

And if you're a powerless mass in your effort to live the kind of life you ought to live, it's because you haven't been born again, sinner. You answer me a question, how in the name of common sense can the God of heaven and the person of the Holy Ghost live in a human body without that person being changed?

To say that a Christian can live in sin is to say that God can sin. I don't say a Christian doesn't commit sin. I've tried very laboriously to make it very clear that this evil nature of ours is always with us, and will always probably be groaning under it.

But the Lord said to Nicodemus, the reason you've got to be regenerated and born again, Nicodemus, is because the flesh will never be anything else but what it is. Remember that. Well, some people try to cultivate the flesh.

Some people try to educate it. Now, I wonder what it does to flesh to educate it. We'll take this evil, depraved nature of mine, all of these faculties paralyzed by the indwelling principle of sin, all the base, lewd, immoral, corruptible, wicked thoughts that come clouding into this heart and mind day by day, and I'm constantly stressing them out.

I'm speaking from your own heart, am I not? Child of God, sinner also. All right, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll take this flesh of mine. Remember, I'm not talking about this. Do you understand what I mean now by flesh here?

I'll take this evil nature of mine with all of its wicked propensities, and I'll put them in grammar grade. I'll put them in high school and college, and I'll graduate in magna cum laude or some other kind of a law.

And when you get through with it, what have you got but educated flesh? And my Bible says educated flesh can't go to heaven. See? Now, some people say, well, if education won't do it, then surely religion will.

So we'll put the little rascal in the cradle roll, and we'll bring him up under this environment of church. We'll teach him to say little Bible verses, and we'll teach him to sing songs. Yes. We'll put him in Sunday school and church and prayer meeting every time the door opens.

And we'll get him so he can even stand up at the young people's meeting and give a right good little talk from the Bible. But when you get through with it, you've got religious flesh. And religious flesh can't be saved.

That's not salvation. So you can educate it, you can cultivate it, you can make it religious. And when you get through with it, what have you got? Educated, cultivated, and religious flesh. And flesh is nothing but flesh.

And that's why you must be born again. You know, I'm afraid you're not going to get this point. So I'm going to give you one of my illustrations. The great danger in connection with evangelism today, so far as I can personally see it, and I'm not speaking as a man who enjoys any great deal of success, as far as numbers are concerned, that I can see, is that of all the jealous Christian workers who put pressure on people.

The Pig in the Clover: Conversion Versus Religious Conformity

You know, here's a man in the city. Let's say his church is having a revival. Well, let's pick up for a step and you travel back. It's not nice to talk about any other people. Let's talk about our own church.

Some unlearned child of God here might get the idea. Well, I know a fellow, you know, you know all that rascal does, hanging around down at Joe's pool room playing 8-ball. No, that's not right. He should live on the same plane as I'm living.

See? So he's one of these civic-minded churches. And he's going to get Joe and he's going to take him and clean him up and get him in the church. Now, you know what he reminds me of? He reminds me of this story, I either cooked up or read somewhere, of a man who was traveling through the countryside one day.

And as he was riding along on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, the spring of the year when the clover was so green and all the trees were budding, you know, he's in such a happy frame of mind. He was just filled with joy, you know, just lilting along in his car.

And as he drove along, he looked and he saw a group of sheep in a field of clover. Getting along just fine. And so he drove a little further and his wife was with him and they were admiring the countryside.

And pretty soon they came to another pasture, but this was a different kind of pasture. And down in the mud hole at the foot of the hill was a bunch of little pork chops, grunting and just snorting and rooting around, just having the time of their life.

He saw one little fellow that was unusually cute. And he was lying in a mud hole with his little turtle tail sticking out one side of the hole of water and his mouth out the other. But he said to his wife, dear, look, isn't it a crime shame?

Why shouldn't he live in the clover like the pig? He has a perfect right to, doesn't he? Doesn't he? Aren't all animals created equal? Doesn't he have a perfect right to live in the clover? Why should he live down here in the mud hole when the sheep is living in the clover?

I'm going to rectify that situation with acidic blood boiling in his self-righteous veins. He goes into the farmer's house and he finds out to whom the pig belongs and he buys the pig. He puts him in the boot of his car and he carries him down to the YMCA.

He gives him a bath, he dresses him up and he's just as clean and so pretty and he ties a ribbon on his tail. And this time he's so clean and smelling nice he puts him on the front seat and drives back out in the countryside.

My, I'll tell you, bursting with civic pride and having made his contribution to the animal kingdom with his heart filled with joy, he goes out in the countryside and he takes his pig and he places him right down, right in the middle of a group of sheep.

Now the reason he put him in the middle is because he wanted him to get off to a good start. And if you want to get a sinner off to a good start just let him join himself to a Christian community like this and sit him down in the middle of God's people without him being born again.

You'll see what kind of start he gets off to. So, feeling so satisfied with himself and so happy, he goes home. A day or two later he says to his wife, I think we should round the country and see how my protege is getting along.

And so they go riding out through the countryside in the afternoon and he comes to where the sheep are. He can't see his little friend. And so he says, well I'm going, I know where he's at, right in the middle where the clover's the greenest and the nicest, right in the middle of all the sheep.

That's where he is because surely he would never leave such a peaceful surrounding as that. So he goes and he looks. And he looks and he looks and he looks and he can't find his little pig. And all of a sudden he sees his little dainty footprints making their way down the side of the hill underneath the fence.

And with many a doubtfulness giving in his heart, he goes a-following up over the hill.

And down in another. And is there a boy or girl tonight.

Who would like to tell me where he found his pig? Where? In a manhole? Sure enough. Now is there a boy or girl who would like to tell me why he found his pig in a manhole? May I tell you? Because pig is pig.

See? Now if miraculously, if miraculously without going to all of this effort, that man had some supernatural power to place within that pig a sheep nature and that pig had the intelligence to feed his sheep nature and starve his pig nature, you couldn't have gotten him out of the clover.

Could you? And that's the new Bible. Did you get that point? I hate to be so corny, but I want you to understand what I'm talking about. Now look, friend. Bless your heart. I like to talk to people like you because I know how you think.

I know how you see. I'm not going to almost think for you. I've been right along there. All these sensations of which your wicked soul craves, mine has had them. I've been along there. I live for the first 27 years of my life nothing but the satisfied or cravings of this inner nature of mine.