account chapter one John chapter one then we want to read also from John chapter three and then from Revelation chapter four John's gospel chapter one we begin our reading at verse ten where we read he this is a person of Christ was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not he came unto his own and his own received him not But as many as received him, to them gave he the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Chapter three, verse one. 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 a flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Marvel not that I say unto thee, ye must be born again. From the fourth chapter of the Revelation, Revelation chapter four, and we begin our reading at verse nine. And when those living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, the four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever. and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power. For thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. Let the Lord bless the reading of his word. Let us pray. Last Lord's Day morning we examined the subject of the marks of the unconverted. As we saw the marks that manifest a person who is still lost and separated from God. Today we want to examine the necessity for conversion. Why conversion is so important. So before we do, let's again pray. Father, we are conscious of a need for thy power and for thy glory to be revealed in all its saving power. Grant, our Father, that we may be calm in thy presence and that we may hear with a hearing of faith. We ask this in order that the glory of the Lord Jesus will be revealed for thy honor and glory also. Amen. When we examine the marks of conversion or the marks of the unconverted, we notice that there is a difference between those who are saved and those who are lost. When God delivered the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage, He says, I've made a difference between you and the Egyptians. And beloved, for those of us who have been saved by divine grace, there is a difference between us and the world. And that difference should be manifested. Now, today we want to look at the necessity for conversion. Conversion is what makes the difference. By conversion, we mean the change that occurs when a person believes the gospel. because God gives that person who believes a new heart in regenerating grace. This is called in John chapter three the new birth. Our Lord told Nicodemus the religious man that he needed to be born again. He told Nicodemus it was absolutely necessary. You must be born again. Now why did our Lord say this to Nicodemus? Well, first of all, he said it because apart from genuine conversion, our existence is vain. If you have never been born of God, your very existence is a vain thing. Revelation chapter four, verse eleven says, We were created for God's pleasure. For thy pleasure we are and were created. God created us for himself. It was Augustine. Or maybe you might say it at Augustine. But it is he who said, To God, thou have created us for thyself, and we are restless until we rest in thee. I am a human being. And as a human being, I possess the ability to reason. And as I reason concerning myself, I have to ask myself certain questions. How did I come into being? And why do I exist? And these are good questions. Man is always looking back at origins. And he's looking forward to the future. And the only person who has the answer is the one who has been born of God. For God reveals it in his word. When I look at the human body, I behold the workmanship of God. And the workmanship of God is something to behold. When you think of the ability that God has given to doctors, isn't it amazing? You cut yourself, no matter where you cut yourself, you're going to bleed. And there are blood vessels that flow to every cell in your body. There's a friend of mine who's a preacher from the hills of Virginia. Ermal Robinson. Some of you may know Ermal, but he died a few years ago. I don't know of a man who could eat more than Ermal Robinson. And he was big. And I told him one day, I said, Ermal, you're hurting your heart. You're hurting your heart. I said, you realize that your body has to nourish every cell and your heart has to pump blood to it. Well, Ermel wasn't going to be, take that too easy. He said, I want you to know that they put bigger and better oil lines on a Cadillac than they do on a Ford. That was his answer to it. And he just kept on going. Well, Ermel's with the Lord now. But nevertheless, the human body, it's a masterpiece. Dr. Roy Brown wrote that book, God's Masterpiece, the Human Body. When I thought of the operation that Mrs. Cooper was going to have, I just sat and contemplated what it means to cut the leg open. Saw off the bones that's attached to the knee somehow. Take care of all the nerves, the blood vessels that go down your leg. For you see, all the nerves that go down to the toes are right there going, there's only one way to get from the brain, they have to get down that leg. And the doctor being so cautious as to take care of the nerves and to be able to do it and put it back together, you talk about the masterpiece, the mind, the dexterity of the hands. But you see, I'm a human being. I was created for God's glory. And the stamp of God is upon every individual in the earth. They carry with them the mark of creation. Why was I created? I was created to bring honor and glory to God and pleasure. But, oh, my friend, if you have never been born of God, you have not brought in pleasure, for you are a rebel against the Creator. And because of that, God is going to bring you into judgment. But I go a step further when I consider the noble faculties of my heaven-born soul. To what end did God create me? He created me to bring pleasure to Him who sits on the throne of God. But you see, I was created in vain if I'm not bringing God pleasure. It would be better not to have any being than not to be for God. That's what our Lord said of Judas. He said of Judas, if we're better for that man, had he not been born. Judas was the leader of the band of the disciples. When Judas spoke, the disciples listened. He spoke. He carried a bag. He was a treasurer. He betrayed the Lord Jesus with a kiss. Our Lord said it would be better for that man had he never been born. And my friend, if you're living outside of Christ and you die in your sins, it would be better for you had you never been born. For without the new birth, you have no true purpose in life. If you're in business and you get to the very top, they'll give you a gold watch when you retire. Or they might give you another check or a check to go with a gold watch, but in a few years you're going to be forgotten. That's how it is in this life. But when it comes to eternal things, where you spend eternity is far more in person. far more important. You see, the unconverted have no answers at all for the mysteries of life. The child of God does. In Matthew, verse eleven, the Lord Jesus said to his own disciples, unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but unto them it is not given. And to the humblest person who has been saved, regenerated by God's matchless grace, unto them that he's given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of heaven. But the person who has never been given a new heart by God is ignorant of all these things that thrill the soul of the believer. The necessity for conversion. First of all, apart from conversion, your very existence is vain. But second, apart from conversion, all religious activities are vain as well. You know, a many and unconverted person goes through a lot of religious activities. But all religious services will be lost for the unconverted, for the unconverted person can never please God. The verse for that is Romans eight, verse eight. It says, they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Now our services may ever be so nice, but God may have no pleasure in them. I'd like you to turn to Isaiah chapter one. Isaiah chapter one in verse fourteen. You know, we may do a lot of things that please us. We may do a lot of things that make us look great in the eyes of others. And the children of Israel were doing that very thing. They were going through the motions. They pleased themselves, they pleased others, but they didn't please God because our heart was not right. In the fourteenth verse of Isaiah chapter one, he says to them, Your new moons and your appointed feasts, My soul hateth. This is God speaking. On the new moons and the feast days in Israel, they appeared before the Lord. They were special days of worship. And the Lord said to them, My soul hates them. They are in trouble unto me. I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea, when you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. The person who is unconverted, though religious in their activities, as they go through the motions, they are a weariness to the Lord, and the Lord will not even listen. Turn over to the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi chapter one. Malachi chapter one, verse ten. God asks the questions and he says to Israel, he says to them, Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nothing? Neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nothing. I have no pleasure in you. In other words, what they did for God, they did because they thought they had to. There was no real desire to do it to honor God. This desire to honor God flows from a new heart. Beloved, when a person is converted, you don't need to beg them to honor God. You don't need to beg them to do this and do that. It flows from the inside. God begins on the inside. And my friend, if the only reason that you practice religious services is to please someone else or to make a name and that doesn't flow from the inside, it is worthless. God says in Malachi one in verse ten, I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts. Neither will I accept an offering at your hand. Oh, unless you have a new heart, unless you've been born of God, all religious activity is vain. Not often, friends. When verses like this are brought to bear upon the conscience and a person gets under conviction of sin, many people seek to mend their ways and they turn and they give money to the church and then they may offer a few prayers. and they think everything is right, but has God given you a new heart? Have I been changed by the regenerating grace of God? If your heart remains the same, my friends, you have never been born of God. Remember Saul of Tarsus. Philippians chapter three, he says he was blameless before God's law. As touching the righteousness of the law, he was blameless. That was the days before he was converted. But then the next verse, Philippians three, verse seven, he says, But what things were gained to me? Those I counted lost for Christ. Yea, and I counted all things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. When our Lord said to Nicodemus, you must be born again. He said so because apart from the new birth, apart from conversion, our very existence is vain. And second, apart from conversion, all our religious activities are vain. And third, apart from conversion, all our hopes are vain. And when you think of hope, everybody has hopes. Hopes. I don't know of anyone who doesn't have hope. And yet there was a time in my life as far as my life toward God. I was without hope because none of the things that I hoped for could ever be accomplished. None of them will ever be accomplished apart from the regenerating grace of God. Bildad, the Shuhite, told Job in Job eight, verse thirteen, the hope of the hypocrite shall perish. A hypocrite is a play actor. A hypocrite is one who goes through the acting, but he's acting as someone else, other than he is. Now, through the prophet Jeremiah, God announced that the Lord rejected their confidences. Whatever they put their confidence in, and Israel, you remember, in the days of Jeremiah, they put their confidence in the temple of the Lord. And in the fact that Jerusalem was a city of God. And they thought, surely God will never permit the Chaldeans to destroy this city. Here is where God's house is. And God says, I'm going to destroy your confidences. He's going to reject them because their heart was wrong. You see, a person who is not converted, he doesn't know any peace. Isaiah fifty nine verse eight he has no peace whatsoever without the fear of the Lord a person does not have the comfort that flows from the Holy Spirit Acts chapter nine verse thirty one speaks of the comfort of the Holy Spirit being the portion of the church that was persecuted in those days Now God speaks of a peace that only his people possess. In Psalm eighty-five verse eight, only his people can possess genuine peace. Sin, friends, is a terrible disease. Sin is a disease that is so terrible it is spoken of in the word of God as leprosy, as a plague of the heart. as a brokenness of the bones. Sin is a terrible disease because it will take you farther than you want to go. There is no one who can say, I'm not going to sin. I'm going to sin and then I'm going to stop. Sin will take your farther than you want to go. Sin will keep you longer than you want to stay. And sin will cost you more than you have to pay. Sin is a terrible disease, friends. Because sin soils the soul. It saturates the mind. It stings the conscience. It saddens the heart. It sickenes the body. It sores the spirit. And it seals the lips. Sin. Ever notice how sealed the lips of many are? Who claim to be the Lord? The lips are sealed. Very little testimony, if any. sin is a terrible disease in the word of God in Leviticus thirteen it is spoken of as the leprosy of the head the leprosy is in the head the man is unclean in first Kings eight verse thirty eight it is called the plague of the heart and David in his great Psalm of repentance Psalm fifty one He speaks of it as a brokenness of the bones. Sin was like broken bones to him. But you see, in contrast to that, those who have a new heart through the regenerating grace of God, the psalmist could say, Great peace, have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them. Isn't that a passage? Psalm one-nineteen, verse one-sixty-five. great peace of David's Lord our law. We're just the opposite of the unconverted. We have the peace of God that garrisons our hearts and our minds to him. Now there are two kinds of peace, friends, that are to be dreaded more than all the troubles in the world. There are two kinds of peace I don't want. There are to be dreaded more than all the troubles in the world. And the words are just changed by a little preposition. The first kind of peace is peace with sin. And the unconverted have peace with sin. Sin doesn't bother them. Sin doesn't plague them. And oh, my friend, if you have peace with sin, it's a bad condition to be in. And then there's a second piece in sin. Not only with it, but in it. And if you can live in sin and never have the conscience pricked and never get under conviction about it, there's something wrong, friends. I'd prefer all the troubles in the world to peace with sin or peace in sin. Well, you see, apart from conversion, all hopes are vain. For the person who can be at peace with sin or is at peace in sin, that person has never truly been born of God. For in dwelling the child of God is a blessed Holy Spirit. For Why must we be born again? Apart from conversion, the work of Christ is in vain. Now, by that statement, I don't mean that Christ died in vain. Oh, no. He won a great victory. But by that statement, I mean that the work of Christ avails nothing for the person who does not repent of their sins. Here's a glorious gospel, but the person who rejects it. There is no hope for them. Now, whenever we make a statement like this, there are many people who think that that is sufficient ground for hope. For Christ died for sinners. Christ died for the ungodly. Romans five, verse six. And that is true. However, Christ never died to save the man who continues in sin. For when a person is born of God, there is a difference. between the child of God with a new heart and the world. For that person who is born of God can never make peace with sin and will never know peace in sin. And you need to realize that. For this purpose to save men in their sins would be against the trust that God put. in our Lord Jesus Christ. For you see, the mediator between God and men, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the servant of the Father. It is from him that he received his commission. The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Furthermore, God entrusted to Christ the glory and the salvation of his people. And in the seventeenth chapter of John, in the second verse, The Lord Jesus could say to the Father, I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And our Lord Jesus gave a full account to the Father of the work and the trust that he gave him. You see, to save men in their sins would overturn all of God's counsels. Now the order of God's salvation is in second Thessalonians. chapter two I want you to turn to it second Thessalonians chapter two where you have the great statements concerning the coming of the Antichrist and his willful disobedience of God and the fact that those who follow him rather than the true Christ we're going are going to be deceived with a mighty deception we read in verse nine concerning the Antichrist, even him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivable mess of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this cause, you see, beloved this morning, In this serious message, we're presenting the love of the truth that you might be saved. But there's a day coming when we read, for this cause, God will send them strong delusion. If you don't receive the love of the truth, the day is coming when you'll be so deluded by the activity of Satan that they should believe a lie. that they all might be damned who believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. In other words, they had peace in sin and peace with sin. Pleasure in unrighteousness. But verse thirteen, here we have the order of God. But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God... hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Notice how God saves a man. He sets him apart. That's what that word sanctification means. We were sanctified by the Spirit. And when I think of the sanctification of the Spirit, I think of that great, convicting work of the Spirit of God that makes known unto the sinner that he's lost and that he needs to be saved. That work that God does in the sinner were sanctified by the Spirit for something to believe the truth. And I was under conviction of sin. And when I had the truth to believe, I believed it. And I was converted. I was saved. I was born of God. Now, to save men in their sins would overthrow all this. You see, God brings sinners to himself through the sanctifying work of the Spirit of God. But I'd like to go a step further. If God saves men in their sins, And you can just go on living the same way you always did and claim to be saved. It does violence to the attributes of God. It does violence to His attributes. First of all, it does violence to His justice. The righteousness of God's justice lies in rendering to all according to their deeds. So we read in Romans chapter two. Now you can't sow to the flesh and reap everlasting life. So says the Word of God. So you see, to claim that you can live in sin and be at peace with sin and be at peace in sin and still claim to be converted and belong to the Lord does violence to the justice of God. For the more it does violence to the holiness of God. to save sinners in their sins would do violence to God's pure and strict holiness men would conclude that God is just like them just as you read in the fiftieth psalm in the twenty first verse God says of the people to David he says you thought that I was altogether such a one as yourself and how many people have that idea They think God is just like themselves. For the more it would do harm, violence, to his veracity. God made declarations in his word. And God keeps his word. God has declared from heaven that if any man shall say that he had peace, though he should go on in the imagination of his heart, his wrath shall smoke against that man. You know I meet people who claim that they have peace with God and they're living just like the world. They're living at peace with their own fleshly imaginations of the heart. My Bible says God's wrath smokes against that person. Where do you read that verse? You read it in Deuteronomy chapter twenty nine verses nineteen and twenty. but it would also do violence to the wisdom of God. You see, to live in sin and to claim to be converted would throw away the choicest of God's mercies, and it would show that we do not value the mercy of God. You see, the unconverted person puts very little confidence in the mercy of God. He puts a small price on God's great salvation. But more than that, it would do violence to his immutability. And when we talk about the immutability of God, we're talking about the fact that God never changes. You see, and if God were to take an unconverted person to heaven, he'd have to take him to heaven apart from the Father's knowledge. And what would that do to the omniscience of God? It would do with violence. Furthermore, he would have to take him apart from the will of God. And what about the omnipotence of God? And then if he took him to heaven apart from the will of God, or if not, he would have to change his will. What about the immutability of God? My friends, if a person claims to be saved, and they're living in their sins, and living in sin as though they're just like everybody else, It does violence to the attributes of God. I'd like to make four statements in closing this morning. Some of these may be a little longer than just a brief statement. To save people in their sins instead of from their sins. You see, when the Lord Jesus came, he was named Jesus. Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. From what sins have you been saved? From. From. You see, the saved people in their sins would be against the Word of Christ. In those familiar verses in Romans ten. We all know verses nine and ten. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. How about the two verses before that? The two verses before that say, Say not in thine heart, who shall ascend into heaven to bring Christ on from above? Or who shall descend into the deep to bring Christ up from the grave? No, God said, you don't need that. The word is nigh deep. We have the word of God. And the word of God says that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, It shall believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. And when a person is genuinely saved, we have the answer to the riddle. Furthermore, you know what I'd do if I were you and I were unconverted? I would arise just like the four lepers of Second Kings chapter seven. Remember the four lepers? The city of Samaria? had been closed in by the armies of the Assyrians. In fact, they were reduced to cannibalism. They were eating their own children. Horrible thought. But there were four lepers that were sitting in the gate. You know what a leper is? It's a person who knows how bad off he is. He knows there's no cure. He knows he's without hope. They were sitting in the gate. They looked at each other and they said, why don't we fall under the Assyrians? If we go into the city, we're going to die. If we go to the camp of the Assyrians, they may even give us something to eat. We're starving to death. And they went over to the Assyrian camp. And the Assyrian camp was vacated. They left their clothing. They left their food. They left their utensils. They left their animals, everything else. They all ran. And can you see those four lepers as they went into the first tent? And they just failed their stomachs. And they found silver and gold and apparel and abundance. They went into the next tent. And they went into the next. They looked at each other and they said, We do not well. Today is a day of glad tidings. And we hold our peace. You see, these four lepers are a picture of someone who comes to Christ realizing their desperate condition. And as a sinner, they come running to Christ and they find in him the mercy of the Lord. But you see, the lepers couldn't keep it to themselves. They had to tell somebody else. And my friend, if I were here and unconverted, I'd come running to Christ and cry out to him for his mercy. for we have the blessed promise him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out the third thing I'd like to leave with you in closing is this it's a question how willful will your destruction be if you harden yourself in your sinful state after hearing a message like this and you decide I'm going to go off just the way I came in and you know you need to be converted how willful will your destruction be the fourth thing I want to leave with you is this God created you for himself and you have the privilege of bringing pleasure to the very heart of the Creator by trusting in Jesus Christ. What is your relationship to the Lord? Today is the day of salvation. If you've never been saved, will you turn your heart to him this morning and just receive the work of Christ as having been done for you? Turn to Christ. Today's the day of grace. Tomorrow may be too late. Trusting today. And be at peace with God. Now let us pray. Our Father, we commend to thee the word of God. The Lord Jesus told Nicodemus he must be born again. The necessity for the new birth. And we ask you, O God of our salvation, take this word and use it to speak to each heart. Upon thine own that have truly believed in thee, may each go forth with a new sense. That great peace are they that love thy law. Nothing shall offend them, because they realize they're in Christ. And we'll thank you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.