Beloved radio friends, we greet you in the name of the Lord Jesus, our blessed Savior. We are grateful for the privilege of coming to you daily, and by God's grace seek to present to you some of the eternal truths of God, and particularly at this season of study and meditation, to consider the great subject of the Fatherhood of God, as well as the children of God. belonging to his family. My beloved radio friend, you that are the children of God, may I exhort and encourage you to enjoy your relationship with him. Manifest your appreciation of being a child of the Father, and may you be an obedient one. To you who may not be children of God, our great desire The purpose and motive of this program, my heart, and of any who may be prayerfully with us in this work, is that you that are unsaved may be brought into the family of God. God has a great family, and throughout the ages of this Christian dispensation, he has been gathering together his children out of every nation, tongue, tribe, and people. Beloved unsaved friend, he wants you. The door is still open for you to accept his Son as your Savior. And again as we quote the words which we have recently touched upon from John chapter one, verse eleven and twelve in particular, we would remind our listeners the world is divided into two classes of people by these two verses. Either a company called Christ Rejectors. and another company, Christ receivers. We read in chapter one of John verse eleven, Jesus came unto his own, meaning his own nation, his own earthly people, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave you the power to become the sons or the children of God, even to them that believe on his name. Here are the two companies. My radio listener, we ask, To which do you belong? One company have never received them. The other company, thank God, they are greatly honored and blessed because they have received them. Are you a Christ-rejector? Oh, may I be faithful to remind you, if you reject the Lord Jesus Christ to the end of your days, you will become, forever, banished away from His eternal presence. All that you may realize the responsibility and the solemn charge, you need to be born again and receive the Lord Jesus as your Savior. Now if, perchance, there may be some still not certain how we can become the children of God. May we continue the thought that we began in John chapter one, verses eleven and twelve and thirteen, by turning to another chapter in John The third chapter. There was a man called Nicodemus in chapter three of John who too wondered how he could be born again. He kept saying to the Lord Jesus who had told him he must be born again. How? How can these things be? How can the man be born? Can a man be born a second time in his mother's womb? And Nicodemus tried to rationalize and understand the meaning of the Savior in respect to the new birth. But I want you to notice something that Jesus told Nicodemus. In chapter three and verse fourteen through sixteen we would like to read. The Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus, A reference from the Old Testament, an incident in the life of Israel in the wilderness long ago. Quoting out of the chapter of Numbers, chapter twenty-one in the book of Numbers. 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 any term of 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. Please let me present the picture. Let me project this scene of Nicodemus before the Lord Jesus that night long ago. Then in your own mind's eye, if you have the question raised, How can I be born again? How can I become a child of God? Listen to the Savior's illustration. As he tells of that incident in the wilderness, recorded in Numbers twenty-one, and may I record the incident very briefly by telling. It was on an occasion when the children of Israel greatly murmured and complained against God for their wilderness experiences, though he was faithfully caring for them. And in response to their murmuring and their complaining, as they were doing so bitterly against Moses and God, God sent judgment and punishment by sending fiery serpents in the midst of the camp that many Israelites were bitten, many of them dying. In their dilemma they turned to Moses and asked him to plead with God, and he pled with God, and God told him, Moses, you lift up a serpent, a brass, make a serpent of brass. Put it on a pole and lift the pole high up in the camp. Tell every bit in Israelite, if you look at that brazen serpent, he lived. And Moses did so. And everyone who looked at that brazen serpent that had been bitten by the serpents, they lived. They did not die. The poison, the poisonous venom that was in their veins, placed by the venomous bite of the serpent, gave no injury and brought no death. But they had to look at the brazen serpent upon the pole. And if any man failed to look, he failed to live. He would die. But all who looked, they lived. Now, beloved, the Lord Jesus is telling Nicodemus, and he's telling you, and telling me, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. You know what he meant. on the cross of Calvary, on another pole, outside of Jerusalem's gate, there on that hill of Golgotha, God's only Son was lifted up to die and become the sin offering for you and for me. And there he took the poison of sin with his eternal consequences and paid the penalty and the judgment by the sacrifice of himself there. And he met that penalty in full and satisfied the righteous and the eternal claims of the Holy God in respect to sin on the behalf of the sinners of the world. Do you believe it, my friend? It's only one thing for you to do. You better look. If you never make, if you never manifest a look of faith, if you never looked at that cross and said, Lord Jesus, Thou didst die for me. I see thee dying for my sins. Lifted up upon the cross to die. Lifted up was he to die. In his finish was his cry. Now in heaven exalted high. Hallelujah what a savior, wrote the Christian poet. My beloved, that is how. For as Nicodemus was told, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life. Well, is the poet written in Christian hymnology? There is look. In a look at the crucified one. There is look at this moment for thee. Then look, sinner, look unto him who was nailed to the tree. I want to ask my radio friends, Did you ever look at the Savior dying for you on the tree? Look. Take a backward glance. By faith. Please know what the Savior says, not whosoever seeth him, whosoever believeth in him. Should not perish but have eternal life. I have not seen the Savior dying on the cross bodily and with my physical eyes. I've been to the spot where I believe he was crucified, but I saw no cross. I saw no three crosses on that hill. I saw no Savior there. I saw the tomb was empty. The cross was gone. I want to tell you, as a young lad, I knelt before the Lord Jesus and acknowledged, I do believe, Lord Jesus, you died for me. And by faith I looked to that cross. And my beloved, that's the way to become a child of God. For God so loved the world, Jesus went on to tell Nicodemus that whosoever believeth in him, that he gave his only son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have what? everlasting life? The life of God? The life of God? My beloved, please, that is how. You want to become a child of God? Nicodemus was told you must be born again. And he kept saying, How? How? How? And the Lord Jesus said, I must be lifted up for you. I must die for you. And may I say, my radio friend, I know the Lord Jesus did die for you. And if the new birth was necessary, his death was necessary too, for you and for me to live. That is how. Oh, beloved, when you and I received the Lord Jesus, we have divine authority to be called his children. For to as many as received him, to them gave you the power, the right, the privilege to be called the sons of the children of God. And may I say, my friends, If you believe on the Lord Jesus, you have perfect freedom to be in relation to the Father and His love, and to be called His child. And may I say, the Lord Jesus himself places you there. At the end of John's Gospel, after the death, the burial, and the resurrection of the Savior. Do you remember what he told Mary, Mary Magdalene, the first to see him, to find him, that resurrection mourned? Go to my brethren, he said to Mary, tell them I ascend unto my Father and your Father. Now he said, my Father is your Father. Oh, my beloved radio friend, if the Lord Jesus properly, rightfully, calls God his Father, he also says, you that believe on me, you that are my children, you too can call my Father your Father. Oh, my beloved, can you say in the words of the prayer that we've referred to before, Our Father, My Father, which art in heaven. I ask again, Are you a child of the Father? You can become one today. May God the Holy Spirit bring you to confess Christ as your Savior. and said, Lord Jesus, make me a child in the Father's family. For he is the way, the truth, and the life, and he has said, No man cometh unto the Father but by me. Come, my radio friend, today. Oh, Father, bless the truth of thy word and its precious truth to every heart for thy glory. In Jesus' name, amen.