We shall begin our reading at verse one, and we shall read through verse sixteen. We will follow the long page as I read. 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 the 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 the man be born again. He cannot see the kingdom of God. Because he must say 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 the man be born of water under the spirit. He cannot enter into the kingdom of God. that which he's born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, he must be born again. The wind bloweth where it willeth, or elicit. And now heareth the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and withereth. So is everyone that he's born of the spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, I fell on the master of Israel, and knoweth not these things. Verily, verily, I say unto thee we speak, and 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 that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish. but have everlasting life. May the Lord bless the reading of his words. Let us pray. Our loving Father, in the precious name of our Lord Jesus, we bow before thee, and we thank you for this discourse that our Lord gave to Nicodemus on the new birth. Truly out of the abundance of the heart, do not speak it. And out of the abundance of thine heart, O God, thou hast spoken. Thou hast spoken in thy son, for thou didst give thy son for us. You spared not your only son. You delivered him up for us all, that we might through him freely receive all things. Thou art indeed the God of all grace. When we examine thy word, we behold thee to be all that your word claims you are. For out of the abundance of thine heart thou hast spoken. And we ask you, our God, to speak to our hearts this morning. Like Samuel of old, we would say, Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. And in speaking to my heart, speak to all who are gathered, and we'll praise you through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. On our previous studies on the doctrine of the new birth, We learn that in the first mention of the new birth, this doctrine is sensed by the Spirit of God against error. There are three negatives that are used by the new birth and one positive. The three negatives are it is not a blood. In other words, this new birth has nothing to do with lineal descent from natural parents. It is not a blood. just because a person has a godly father or mother does not say that they are born of God. It's not a blood. The second thing that we notice in the Word of God, that it is not of the will of the flesh. It is not of the will of the flesh. In other words, that which is born of the flesh is flesh. Not of the will of the flesh. The third thing we learned, it is not of the will of man. Man by religious activities. cannot produce the new birth in himself or in anyone else. You may go through all the religious liturgies of many churches and still belong. For the new birth is not of blood. It is not of the will of the flesh. It is not of the will of man. It is of God. My dear friends, the new birth is all of God. God has to do it. And in order to see this truth, we examine a little verse in the twenty-eighth of Job, the seventh verse that says, There is a path that no foul knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hath not seen. And we contrast it, as Job does in Job twenty-eighth, that great telescope, the eye of the vulture, with the eye of the miner, the miner who digs deep into the boughs of the earth and brings forth the precious gems, that are there, the rubies, the diamonds, the silver, the gold, the sapphires, he gets them. Now the reason he gets them is he has an appetite for them. The vulture doesn't have an appetite for diamonds. The vulture has an appetite for dead things. So we learned a few things. Number one, the vulture has the appetite of a vulture because it has the nature of one. What begets nature, birth? This is a law that exists throughout all of creation. Birth determines nature. It is nature that determines appetite. It is appetite that determines character. Here are three basic principles. And, of course, take it another step. It is character that determines vision. So it all hinges on nature. And the Lord says to Nicodemus in the third of John, you must have a new birth in order that you have a new nation. And we need the nature of God. We need the nature of God in order to enjoy the things of God. Second Corinthians chapter two is very clear on this, that apart from the revelation of God, to man. Man is entirely in the dark. He is dead in trespasses and sins. He cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God. God has to reveal them to him. Now the first thing we notice in John chapter three is the importance of the new birth. Our Lord said to Nicodemus in verse three that except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. This gives to us It's important. It is important because unless we have the new birth, spiritual things don't mean anything to us. Oh, we can understand a lot of the words of the Bible. We may be able to understand certain historical facts about the Bible, but we cannot see the spiritual meaning of the Bible. Nicodemus was a man schooled in the Old Testament scriptures. but he was blind to the spiritual value of the Word of God, for he wasn't born of God. And only after a person is born of God can he understand the things of God. And it's only after he is born again that he has an appetite for the things of God. See, in his birth that determines nature, It is nature that determines appetite. Did you ever see, well, I'm talking to preachers right now. I've spoken in places where I looked over the audience, and as I looked over the audience, I could see people who were just waiting for one thing, the clock to come to the right time so they know they'd get out. They were there, I don't know why, but they were bored with the things of God. There are a lot of people that are bored with the things of God, and the reason for it they have no appetite. And the appetite comes the result of a new nature, and the nature is the result of birth. Birth determines nature. My dear friend, if you don't have an appetite for the things of God, you haven't been born of God. It is the birth that determines the nature. and the nature determines the appetite. I remember the year in nineteen fifty-two. It was New Year's Eve. My wife was in the hospital expecting our first child. And I was hoping if she'd come before midnight. I wanted her to be born on the thirty-first of December. See, I was greedy. I wanted to make a little money on income tax. You see? Income done. Every few minutes, a friend of mine, a fellow I work with, he's called on the telephone. After midnight, he says, too late. It's too late. And came way into the first of the year, about five o'clock on New Year's Day. So, but I want to tell you something. I knew when she came, especially when we brought her home from the hospital. Because every couple of hours, she woke us up. And when you hear somebody say, I slept like a baby last night. That means they woke up every two hours for feeding. You see, and let us know she was there. And let us know that she was alive. She was there. Why? She was hungry. She had an appetite. The Word of God tells me in First Peter one, twenty-three. Turn to us, goodie. First Peter, chapter one, and we're going to read just a few verses here, and we're going to read into the second chapter of verse Peter. First Peter, if you want to see, remember the original letters were not divided by chapter and verses. There are no chapter and verse divisions in the original manuscripts. But I thank God for the chapter and verse divisions. But now notice verse twenty-three. Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is the flower of grass, the grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away. What the word of the Lord. Now notice the contrast. The things that are of the flesh, the things that man prizes so highly, the things that have to do with his life, They're all going to wither and pass away. But the scripture says, the word of the Lord ensured forever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. It is the word whereby we are born of God. Wherefore, laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speaking as newborn babies. Desire. The sincere milk of the word said he may grow thereby. A person who is born of God has something. They have an appetite. They have an appetite for spiritual things. An appetite to grow. Now the new birth is important. Our Lord said to Nicodemus, except the man be born again, he cannot see. He has no capacity for the life of the revelation of God. The new birth is necessary first. And if you have no capacity, no desire, no appetite, oh, my friend, you aren't born of God. You may be baptized. You may be religious if you're not born of God. And our Lord said to a man who was religious, a man who knew the Old Testament scripture, he said, now, Nicodemus, except you're born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God. of God. Now, we not only notice the importance of the new birth in verse three, we notice in verse five, the instrument of the new birth, the Word of God, under the emblem of water, except the man be born of water. Then we notice the generator of the new birth is the Holy Spirit. We are born of water and the Spirit, the Word of God, and the Spirit of God. Just as in the natural, we had two parents, a mother and a father. In the spiritual, we have two parents, the Word of God and the Spirit of God. Then in verse seven, we saw the necessity for the new birth. He said, Marvel not that at seventh of thee ye must be born again. Now today, in verse eight, we come to the process. of the new birth. There is a process, and our Lord said something here that is exceedingly interesting to me, and I want you to grasp it by his matchless grace. In verse eight he says, the wind bloweth where it lifts us, or in other words, the wind bloweth where it willeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof. But canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it soeth. So is everyone. that he's born of the Spirit. Now notice the way in which our Lord uses the metaphor of the wind, and then he definitely says in relation to the metaphor, so is everyone who is born of the Spirit. Both the wind and the Spirit are sovereign in their activities. Both are mysterious. in their activities. The wind blows where it pleases, and the Spirit of God works where he pleases. And all beloved, what a glorious truth this is, to know that the Spirit of God works where he pleases. But he works through the Word. And when I look over at this period, the history of the church, when I read through the acts of the apostles. I find the Spirit of God working where men wish they wouldn't. I see the Spirit of God working sovereignly, convicting, saving, working miraculously, performing the new birth, quickening men to life, delivering men from the bonds of darkness and sin and Satan into the glorious liberty of the children of God. This is what he is doing. And the scripture says, the wind blow at where it pleases, where it willeth. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. Now let us consider a few things about the wind this morning. As we then liken the light that is ours by regeneration, that light in the Spirit. We notice first of all that the wind is irresponsible. It is irresponsible. That is as far as man is concerned. I was sitting in the home of my friend Bob Livingston, who was having the gospel meetings in Plainsville, preaching the gospel every night, and Bob and his wife were both school teachers, and they have a home right near Chandler, and he has three air-shared dolls, big things. Mitch? He said, Bill? How would you like to stay in our home while you're preaching here and take care of our dogs? So I went to the dogs for a few days, and I took care of the dogs there. And I got to be good friends with those vicious dogs. But anyway, Bob and Diane have a little black and white TV set on the table, and I was staying in this house by myself, so while I was eating my cornflakes, I just turned on the news in the morning for breakfast. And I was listening to these reporters out of Greenville, South Carolina. And it happened that there were two vicious tornadoes, one in Texas, one in Louisiana. That's the day before. The number of people were killed. There was quite an extensive amount of damage that was done. And like a good reporter... This man said something that made me laugh. He said to this other man, he said, Why can't we do something about this? And I literally laughed. These reporters, they try to get in front of everybody and stick a microphone at them, get answers to their questions. He asked the question, Why can't we do something about it? In other words, Man says, I want to control the wind. The Lord says, a wind blows where it pleases. The wind isn't responsible to some reporter. A wind is responsible to the Creator. The wind blow it where it pleases. The wind, friends, is an element beyond the control of man. The wind doesn't consult man's pleasure, and it can't be regulated by man's devices. The wind blows when and where and as it pleases. And may I say this morning that the Spirit of God in his operations, in quickening men to life, he moves, he works as he pleases, not as man pleases. The Spirit of God is not regulated by man. That's the most thrilling thing. concerning the new birth. Thank God man can't regulate the spirit of God. But do you know if men could? There are certain people they keep out of heaven. There are a lot of people they send to the lake of fire because you often hear men tell others to go there. The wind bloweth where it leads it. When you come to the word of God Mah be more the sovereignty of the one who is God, and acknowledge that he has every right to do what he wills in his creation. The wind blow at where it leads. The wind is irresponsible. But more than that, the wind is irresistible. The wind is irresistible. When the wind blows in the fullness of its power, it sweeps everything before it. When the Spirit of God comes in the fullness of His power in regenerating grace, He breaks down prejudices. Can you imagine Saul of Tarsus, that prejudiced Jew, ever going to the Gentiles with the gospel? That's exactly what he did every last day. That prejudiced Jew. Why? What happened? The Spirit of God breaks down prejudice. The Spirit of God is irresistible. It breaks down prejudice. More than that, it subdues the rebellious will. For the word of God says, The carnal mind is enmity against God. It is not subject to the law of God. Neither indeed can it be, so that they that are in the flesh cannot believe God. Men's will is rebellious against God. And yet the word says, My people shall be willing. in the day of my power. Psalm-a-hundred-ten verse three. The Spirit of God is irresistible in breaking down prejudice. The Spirit of God overcomes all opposition to his desire. The wind bloweth where it pleases. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. The wind is irresistible. But more than that, the wind is irregular. The wind is irregular. Sometimes the wind blows off. Sometimes you can hear the wind a long way off. I remember when a tornado came through a number of miles away. I was standing in a building with a man by name of Jim Jones, a good mechanic in the city of Burlington, and he said, I can hear it coming. And it was about eight miles away where it passed. And boy, we could hear it. We could hear it a long way off. Sometimes the wind blows softly. Sometimes it blows in the fullness of its power. So in the workings of the new birth. With some the Spirit of God works gently. In others there's a radical dynamic change. This is the working of the Spirit of God. Sometimes the Spirit of God pricks the souls of many at one time, and is a great harvest. Sometimes only one or two or three are saved. Who can understand? I've been in meetings where I've seen a number get saved in one night. I've been in places where people quietly get saved to the hearing of the Word of God. And they came and told me, I trusted Christ. I've been in places, I remember, a meeting in the north of Lebanon, in the mountains, in a place called Oh No. Oh, yes, there are people from Oh, No. In a place called Oh, No. A woman stood up near the back of the meeting at the close of the service. And she cried with tears and ran down the aisle. And when I met her at the front, I said, what do you want? That's what I said to her. She said, I want to get saved. I want to get saved. I'm lost. I need to be saved. You see, the Spirit of God doesn't respond to our act. That woman I didn't invite her. She invited me. I didn't call upon her. She called upon me. The Spirit of God worked. And there was that genuine response to the Spirit of God. The wind is irregular. All friends, I long for those days to see the Spirit of God move and save on a large move. As you know, I praise God for the ones and the twos that get saved through the hearing of the gospel. The Spirit of God If he doesn't do it, friend, it isn't done. It isn't the preacher that saves. It isn't the church that saves. It's the Spirit of God who saves. Friends, all the religious activity, all the money we spend, and you can put it all together unless the Spirit of God does it. It isn't done. And I long for the Spirit of God to work in His mighty power in regeneration. The Spirit of God is irregular, but more than not, the Spirit of God is invisible. You can't see the Spirit of God. You can't see the wind either. Of all the things of nature, the wind is the one thing you can't see. You can see frost. You can see snow. You can see rain. These are things of nature. You can see the lightning. But you can't see the spirit. and you can't see the wind. Now I can see the results of the wind, can't you? Yes, you can. And by the way, I can see the results of the Spirit of God. When the Spirit of God is tricking the person to life, there are results. You see, nature determines, no birth determines nature, and nature determines appetite. And the appetite for spiritual things is like a tree that's blowing in the wind. I can't see the wind, but I see the result of the wind. And in a person's life, I cannot see the Spirit of God working in the life, but I see the result of it. And the result is there is an appetite for spiritual things. The wind is invisible. The Spirit of God's working are invisible. May I ask you, do you have an appetite? You have that appetite? More than that, the wind is inscrutable. The wind is inscrutable. Who can explain the wind? Who can explain its origin, its nature, its activities? You hear the weatherman and he'll, on a Monday night, if you happen to watch the news and you get the weatherman, he's going to tell you what it's going to be like Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I don't know why they waste their time because he changes it the next morning. Because the weatherman comes on again and things have changed. Why? The wind is inscrutable. The wind is inscrutable. By the way, so are the activities of the Holy Spirit. The activities of the Holy Spirit, friends, are conducted secretly. The workings of the Spirit of God are profoundly mysterious. You look at Saul of Tarsus, the man who has even stoned to death. Who would think that the Spirit of God is working in that life secretly to bring him to an end of himself, to overcome his prejudice, to subdue his rebellious will, and to make him say, Lord, what will God have me to do? The Spirit of God is inscrutable. If I only had the first eight chapters of Acts, I'd never think Saul of Tarsus would get saved. If only there were only eight chapters in Acts, I'd never think I'd ever see Saul of Tarsus in heaven. But he's there. And you know why? God gave us more than eight chapters. And we had the record of the working of the Spirit of God. More than that, the Spirit of God is indispensable. So he's a win. So is the wind. If a dead calm were to continue indefinitely, that no air were moving, all vegetation would die. Or how quickly we will, from the hot day when there is no wind. But so will the Holy Spirit. Without Him we can do nothing. All spiritual life is the result of the new birth. determines nature. Now here we have the process. The process of the new birth. The wind blow at where it's bleeding. You hear the sound thereof. But you cannot tell where it came from and where it's going. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. In verse eight says, so is everyone. And God has in his bleak him to throw an impenetrable veil over the beginnings and the processes of life. Now I'm aware of the fact that I'm alive. I'm aware of that. But how I live, I can't tell you. I don't know that. I remember incidents in my childhood, but I don't remember the day I was born. I don't remember the day I was born, but I remember incidents in my childhood that made me aware of the fact that I was alive. You and I are aware of the fact that we're alive. But how? We can't tell. Because life is evident to the consciousness. It manifests to the senses. But it's profoundly mysterious in its operations. Now we come to the life of the Spirit. The Word of God says, A wind bloweth. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. Not a wind bloweth. That's a fact. We're all aware of that. You hear the sound thereof. This is the evidence that the wind is blowing. But you do not know where it comes from or where it's going. This is a mystery that lies behind the fact. And you take a man like Saul of Parsons. He's a mystery. You take any one of us. We're a mystery. We're aware of it. But the mystery behind the facts, we see the facts. in a changed life. We see what God has done. We see the evidence of the Spirit of God working in a life. A friend of mine who was a Bible teacher years ago came to our city at a Bible conference. Dr. Harold Laird, he had come from Lancaster. Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that beautiful area, if any of you were ever through Lancaster, They used to have the large stockyards there, down by the railroad tracks along right off the five-oh-one highway. There was a man there who worked at the stockyards. He operated a trucking business. His name was Sam Schatzberger. Sam was a vile, flat, beaming person. But God saved Sam Schatzberger. And Harold Laird went with him to the stockyards to see the operation that was over there. And when he walked on the aisle with Sam Schatzberger, some of Sam's men took off their house. Harold Laird turned to Sam Schatzberger and he said this to him, he said, facts are stubborn things, especially when they walk our streets. and breathe our air. The wind blow it, that's a fact. You hear the sound thereof, that's the evidence of the fact. If you look at Sam Schottberger, you could, we couldn't see the workings of the spirit, but we see the evidence of it that changed life. The life is changed. That's the evidence behind the fact, but ah, that's a mystery, right? Oh, how stubborn past all. Especially when they walk our streets and they breathe our air. You see, the one born of God knows that he has life. Oh, if you're here today and you're born of God, you know it. You know that you have life. I'll tell you why. You know it because you are in the enjoyment of the evidences of it. And if you're not enjoying the evidences of it, you don't have it. Now I can't explain how the Spirit of God works in the soul, how it subdues the will, how it creates life. I can't explain that. And I don't think you can either. I don't think you can either. I can't explain that because it belongs to the deep things of God. But I'll tell you this. I know that I'm born of God because I am enjoying the evidences and the life of the new birth. So that brings me very quickly to the results of the new birth. There are certain results. When a person is born of God, the results are there. You don't produce these results by the flesh. You don't reproduce these by the flesh anymore than you can hang fruit on an apple tree. The fruit on an apple tree is the evidence of the life that's on the inside. You can't see the life of the tree. But the fact that it's there evidences itself in truth. First of all, we read the passage, there's a desire for the sincere milk of the Word. First Peter chapter two, verses two and three. There's a desire for the sincere milk of the Word. When we're born of God, this is the evidence of the new birth. Now this was evidenced in Nicodemus in verse nine, when he cried out, How can these things be? And our Lord opened to him the truth of the gospel, how that Christ is a son of man, and that he came to earth, and that he must die on the cross, and he must be lifted up, and whosoever looks to him will have eternal life. But then, There's a fact of a divine nature. The fact of a divine nature, Second Peter, one verse four says that we are made partakers of the divine nature. Oh, friends, here we have embodied the great mystery of godliness. God manifests in the flesh. God came to earth and he partook of the nature of man. He became a man. He didn't partake a man's sinful nature. He partook of the nature of man. There's a big difference between nature and sinful nature. Now, you and I are nature's sinful. His wasn't. But he became a man. But then after dying for our sins on the cross, he gives us his nature. And we're partakers of the divine nature. This is the result of the new birth. We now have the divine nature. It is birth that determines nature. But then there is the evidence of sonship. First John three verse two says, Beloved, now are we the sons of God. And it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Now, this sonship is evidenced by a walk. It's evidenced by a walk. First John three, verse nine, we don't practice sin. Oh, friends, those who are born of God do not practice sin. First John three, verse nine. And the word commit there means, could be better translated, we do not practice sin. First John five, verse one, says, Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. And this birth evidences itself in a life of love. We love one another. And those who are born of God are heirs of God. Romans eight, verse seventeen. It's a new birth yours. In conclusion, let me say this. We've been on this subject for three weeks. We become convinced when we read the word of God that the new birth is all of God. Now you may say to yourself, you may not say it out loud that someone else hears you. You may say to yourself, well, if the new birth is all of God, I'm just going to sit here and I'm going to wait for God to work. You may say that. But what does it mean? It means that you are just manifesting whether you say it or whether you think it. That rebellious indifference that is manifested by the carnal mind, which is enmity against God. Because you want to say, well, because the new birth is of God and it's not a me and it's his fault. That's what the natural man would like to say. But God doesn't give you that opportunity. For the word declares that the carnal mind is enmity against God. And instead of bowing before him in repentance, you sit in rebellious indifference. And all my friends, God knows where you sit. And God knows what you're thinking. And God knows your attitudes toward him. Rebellious indifference to the things of God and to the Christ of God who has manifested himself in love by the giving of himself at the place called Calvary. He calls the men to repent. For you see, regeneration, friends, is by the word of God and by the spirit of God. And you who sit in rebellious indifference to God you have had which to you the Word of God and the Spirit of God has been here in quickening power. It is men who proclaim the Word of God. And men who proclaim the Word of God are always triumphant. We know not defeat. Are you listening? They who proclaim the word of God are always triumphant. We don't know these things. Turn with me to prove that. The second Corinthians chapter two and verse fourteen. Paul cries out in this passage, second Corinthians chapter two, verse fourteen. He cries out, Now thanks be unto God, which always caused us. to triumph in Christ, in them that are saved. No, excuse me, I'm in the wrong verse. It's verse fourteen. Now thanks be unto God which always causes us to triumph in Christ and make us manifest the savor of his knowledge by us in every place, for we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish. to the one we are a saver of life unto life, and unto the other of death unto death? And who is sufficient for these things? All thy friends, we don't know these beasts. We only know triumphant victory, for we are marching in the procession of our triumphant Savior, who died and rose again, who worked sovereignly in the lives of men, subduing prejudice, and rebellious wills. And I say to you this morning, we have every right to be triumphant because we are a saver of life and of death and of death. Let me explain that. Suppose there were two hundred people here this morning. And when we came through the door, one hundred of the two hundred are born of God. That's fifty percent. Now, out of that other hundred, to the preaching of the gospel, we saw fifty converts this morning. Fifty were saved. We would say, ooh, what a great service. But I want to ask you, what about the other fifty? Is anything done there? Yes. That's what the text is saying. A work was done there, and you cannot sit by in rebellious indifference to the claims of the Gospel or to the Word of God, for just as the Spirit of God works, subduing the will and quickening to life, there is a hardening process for the same Gospel, which delivers men from the pit. That same Gospel hardens people. To go on in their indifference to God. I ask you. Turn to the Lamb of God. Before he comes in glory. And it's too late. As you turn. Ask him to subdue your will. Confess your sins to him. Ask him to save you. For we have the promise. whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, and it will be an evidence of the Spirit of God working in your life. Are you born of God? None of us can escape this message. Nobody can escape.