Immediate Effects

Scripture Reading: John 6:35-45

0:00 John 6, 35-45 In the midst of a discourse in which our Lord proclaims himself to be the bread of life, what manner was to the Israelites in the wilderness, the very staff of life Jesus Christ is spiritually to the world, in the midst of that discourse he says in verse 35,

0:45 Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall not hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you that ye have seen me, and yet believe not. All that which the Father giveth me shall come unto me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.

1:12 For I am come down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the will of him that sent me, that of all that which he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone that beholdeth the Son and believeth on him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. The Jews therefore murmured concerning him, because he said, I am the bread which came down out of heaven.

1:49 And they said, Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How doth he now say, I am come down from heaven? Jesus answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come unto me except the Father that sent me draw him, and I will raise him up in the last day.

2:15 It is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught of God. Every one that hath heard from the Father and hath learned cometh unto me. The writer to the Hebrews describes God's gracious work of rescuing sinners through the person and work of Christ as so great salvation. And in our morning studies of the Word of God, we are presently examining this so great salvation, at least those aspects of it that come under the general category of the cardinal blessings of salvation through Jesus Christ.

Review and Transition to Immediate Effects

3:04 We have seen in our study of the Scriptures that the orbit within which all of these blessings are conferred upon sinners is union with Jesus Christ. God does not parcel out any blessing apart from His Son, that is, the distinctive blessings of salvation. But we have also seen that there is an order in the conferral of these blessings. God does not dump them upon the recipients all at once.

3:37 There are some that I have entitled the threshold blessings, calling and regeneration. Those that are given to us immediately upon entering, as it were, the house, having passed over the threshold. They are justification, adoption, the indwelling of the Spirit, some of these other blessings that we shall see in subsequent studies. And then some await us, the end of our journey, those that come to us when we are glorified.

4:07 Well, we are presently concerned with the second of those threshold blessings, namely regeneration. We've examined the major analogies of this blessing in the Old and the New Testaments, examining those passages in which God says He will circumcise the hearts of men. He will take out the heart of stone. He will give them a heart of flesh.

4:30 The passages which speak of a new birth, of a new creation, and of a new life. And when we put them all together, we saw in our study that whatever regeneration is, God is careful to emphasize the exclusiveness of the divine agency. It is God who gives the new heart. It is God who begets us again unto newness of life.

4:55 We saw that again and again there is emphasized the efficacy of the divine power. When God regenerates, He does something in the sinner. He effects a change. He takes out the heart of stone.

5:09 He imparts the heart of flesh. When He makes a new creation, there are the manifestations of His creative power. And thirdly, the graciousness of the divine motive is emphasized again and again. There is nothing in the sinner to elicit this mighty work of God, but it is the grace of God which is the moving force in the heart of God.

5:33 Well then, having looked at the major analogies of this gracious transformation, last Lord's Day we considered the essential elements of this transformation. What happens when God regenerates the sinner? And using the extended analogy of the man with his faulty glasses and his beautifully prepared meal, we saw from the Scriptures that regeneration involves the illumination of the mind, the redirecting of the affections, and the rectifying of the will. And I'm not going over that ground again, I'm simply asserting that it is those things which we discovered in the Scriptures.

6:13 Now this morning, we proceed to examine together from the Scriptures the inevitable effects of this transformation. If regeneration involves this illumination of the mind, this redirecting of the affections, and this rectifying of the will, what effects will follow from that mighty work of God? Well, in our study this morning, we shall consider the first gathering of those effects, those that I am calling the immediate effects of regeneration, and then, God willing, in our subsequent study, the continuous or the long-range effects of this transformation. Very well then, what are the immediate effects of this transformation that the Bible calls regeneration?

The Immediate Effect: Coming to Christ in Repentance and Faith

7:06 The making of a new creature, the giving of a new birth, the impartation of a new life. Well, I'm going to assert what the immediate effects are, and then secondly, we're going to derive some very practical observations from that assertion and the Scriptures which support it. What then is the immediate effect of regeneration? When God graciously illumines the mind, when He redirects the affections and rectifies the will, what is the first conscious acting of the regenerate man, woman, boy, or girl?

7:45 Well, the answer of the Bible to that question is very plain. The only revealed pattern which the gracious work of regeneration cuts is the pattern of repentance and faith, or coming to Christ in the appointed way. This is why I read John 6 in your hearing. Notice carefully what is said in verse 44.

8:13 In verse 44, our Lord speaks of a moral and spiritual impossibility. No man can come to me except the Father that hath sent me draw him. Jesus does not say no man may come, which would be a word of permission. But he says no man can come, which is a word of ability.

8:43 And if some of you wonder why some of us are sticklers in using may for permission and can for ability, if you don't understand that distinction, you won't understand the Bible at certain points. And our Lord is saying that there is a moral and spiritual impossibility inherent in every son and daughter of Adam. He cannot, she cannot savingly come to Christ in and of himself or herself. There must be a work of the Father called in this passage drawing.

9:19 And that drawing is nothing other than that which is involved in the regenerating work of the Spirit.

9:27 So in verse 44 there is moral and spiritual impossibility. No coming to Christ apart from the drawing of the Father. But now will you go right on to verse 45 with me. It is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught of God.

9:47 Every one therefore that hath heard from the Father and hath learned cometh unto me.

9:56 Here our Lord moves from a statement of moral and spiritual impossibility to a statement of moral and spiritual inevitability. As surely as it is true that no man can come except the Father draw, when the Father draws by this inward teaching and illumination, a sinner cannot but come to me. Notice the language. Everyone who hath heard and hath learned of the Father does indeed come.

10:35 And it is the very coming that is the revelation that he has been taught of God. So do you see the wonderful fusion of the two truths in this passage? The impossibility, no man can come. The inevitability, all who are taught shall indeed and do indeed come.

10:58 And so the first and immediate effect of regeneration is coming to Jesus Christ. To use the analogy of the miracle of the raising of Lazarus from the dead, when Lazarus lay in his own tomb, he was utterly without all of the vital signs of spiritual life. And perhaps you may wish to turn to the passage and at least glance at it occasionally as we follow through this parallel. He is dead enough to stink.

Lazarus as Analogy: Life Before Movement

11:32 The process of putrefaction, of decay, has already set in to his body. And yet our Lord Jesus Christ comes to the tomb, and then we read in John chapter 11,

11:49 and verse 43, And when he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus come forth and he that was dead came forth bound hand and foot with grave cloths and his face was bound about with a napkin Jesus sat unto them loose him and let him go now get the picture he is dead utterly dead he is not in a swoon he is not in a coma some comatose state he is dead dead if the coroner had come the report had already been signed and duly notarized or whatever else is necessary, he was dead. But now the voice of the Son of God speaks and says, Lazarus, come forth.

12:37 And somewhere from the time the words left the mouth of Jesus, the energy and power of the Son of God actually penetrated the realm of death. And where there was death, it created life. and what was the first evidence or effect of that life.

13:00 Eardrums that could receive no sounds, that registered no message on a dead brain, suddenly those very eardrums begin to vibrate and a message is sent by the auditory nerve, a living nerve to a living brain and a living man hears words, come forth. And the first consciousness he had that life had been given at the level of his subconscious The first consciousness was a command from the Son of God Lazarus, he hears his name, come forth, and he sits up off his slab upon which he was laid, and he begins to walk with two healthy living legs in the direction of the voice that called him from the tomb.

13:47 Now, have I read anything into the passage? It's all there. Well, this is a beautiful analogy of regeneration.

13:55 The voice of Jesus Christ which goes out in the gospel, in the general universal call of the gospel, it may have gone out to a man or a woman a thousand or ten thousand times, but there comes a point in his spiritual history when the Son of God, by creative power, brings life to that dead sinner, And the first consciousness of that life, as far as the sinner is concerned, is he hears his name. Not audibly, but spiritually. And he begins to walk with the two legs of repentance and faith in the direction of the Son of God who is called. Isn't that what verse 45 of John 6 says?

14:43 Whoever is taught of the Father and learns of the Father cometh unto me. And I say then here is a beautiful analogy of what happens when God illuminates the mind in regeneration, redirects the affections and rectifies the will, The first actings of that illuminated mind, those redirected affections and rectified will, the first actings are repentance and faith. Without separating them, faith and repentance, the two legs as the two legs upon which Lazarus walked to the Son of God. The sinner now approaches a gracious God through the Lord Jesus Christ

15:34 in terms of the gospel offer. Or to go back to our extended analogy of last week, what is the immediate effect of that man who had the wavy glasses with the funny tint in them that caused him to look upon that beautiful meal as garbage? What's the first effect of getting his glasses removed? Seeing the meal for what it really is.

15:59 Having his affections toward it changed. Having his will toward it changed. Well, the first effect will be that he moves towards the meal or moves the meal towards him and begins to assimilate it and make it his own. And so it is in the gospel.

16:17 Christ and all the blessings in him are set before us as a great banquet provided by God in his grace and mercy. And on the one hand, many regarded as mere garbage. And on the other hand, some regarded as a man who is already stuffed and has no appetite. As Solomon says, the full soul loatheth even a honeycomb.

Repentance and Faith: Essential, Conscious, and Gifts

16:39 But now suddenly, by that inward, mysterious, powerful work of the Spirit, the sinner is regenerated. And the first conscious actings of that regenerate man is to feed upon the Christ who has been set before him. So then repentance and faith, you see, are set forth in the Bible as essential to life and salvation. Paul says in Acts 20, 21 that he testified to Jews and Greeks, Repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

17:14 The Scripture says, He that believeth not shall be damned. He that believeth not the wrath of God abideth upon him. Except he repent, he shall perish. These are essential to life and salvation.

17:27 Furthermore, the Bible teaches they are the conscious activities of man. Repentance and faith are commanded, and they are nowhere described as God's activities. It is man that repents and man that believes. You see, the Lord Jesus did not come out of Lazarus' tombs.

17:46 Lazarus did, and it was Lazarus' legs that carried him out of that tomb in the direction of Jesus. and it's the legs of your faith and your repentance that carry you in the direction of the Son of God. And you'll never get to Him apart from repentance and faith. They are essential to life and salvation.

18:06 They are the conscious activities of man, but the same Bible that teaches those two things teaches that they are the gracious gifts of God. Unto you it has been given, not only to believe, but to suffer. Philippians 1.29 God hath granted to the Gentiles repentance, Acts 11.

18:24 He hath been exalted, Acts 5, for to give repentance. By grace do you say through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Well, you see here, at least to some degree, is the answer to that which is such a stumbling block to so many.

18:42 How can faith and repentance be said to be essential to life and salvation? the conscious activities of man, and yet the gracious gifts of God. Well, because all are true.

18:56 It was Lazarus who had to come forth. But he never would have come forth if life had not been imparted. The life that was imparted was wholly the work of God. The coming forth was wholly the work of Lazarus.

19:11 But he could take no credit and go around and click his heels and say, Hey, I walked out of a tomb. You think something about me? Boy, I made a lovely decision to get out of that tomb. Someone says, hey, wait a minute, were you dead?

19:20 Oh, yeah, but you should have seen me come skipping out of there. Woo!

19:25 Someone says, hey, wait a minute. You never would have skipped unless there had been life imparted.

19:36 Lazarus would have to acknowledge, you see, no matter how much skipping he did coming out, no matter how pretty he looked after he got his grave clothes off, if there had not been a creative word that brought life in the midst of death, He never would have come out of that tomb. We do not deny that we repent. We believe. We come to Christ.

19:56 Isn't that what the verse says? Whoever is taught of the Father comes to me. We come freely. We come willingly.

20:03 We come joyfully. But we come as the fruit of God's almighty regenerating activity. Do you see the relationship now between the two? Well, if this is indeed the teaching of the Bible, then we come to some important observations and conclusions based upon that teaching.

Deduction 1: No Grounds for Presuming Regeneration Without Penitent Faith

20:24 And the first one is this. No one, no one has any biblical grounds to believe himself regenerate if he is not a penitent believing sinner. No one has any grounds to believe himself regenerate, who is not a penitent believing sinner. Turn please to 1 John chapter 5.

20:53 1 John chapter 5.

20:58 We shall have occasion to come back to this little epistle in greater detail in our next study. 1 John 5, 1. Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is, or better translated, hath been begotten of God. You have a perfect passage.

21:23 Something has happened to the person, and it happened in the past, and the results obtained to the present. Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ has been begotten of God. Now, notice what John is saying. He says, if you find a believer, you find someone who is a recipient of the new birth.

21:49 He that believes has been begotten of God. But you never know the person who is begotten unless the begetting is manifest in his believing. You see, there is no such thing as one who is begotten but not believing, or believing who has not been begotten. You see the point that we're making from the passage.

22:15 Wherever there is true faith, and of course it will be joined with repentance, there the divine begetting has occurred. So no one has any biblical grounds to believe himself regenerate who is not a penitent believing sinner. The same truth is essentially set forth in John 1, 12 and 13. Although there is some dispute as to the proper translation of this verse, and it has to do with the technicalities of textual criticism.

22:47 My study has brought me to the conclusion that the evidence is just about even on both sides, so the reading that is in most of our Bibles could well be the proper reading. John 1, in verse 11, He came to his own, and they that were his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God. That's not regeneration, that's adoption.

23:12 That's adoption that is bound up with faith. He gave the right to become, to be constituted the children 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. Now you see the two things John brings together? He brings the divine begetting and the sinners receiving in faith into an inseparable relationship.

23:42 As many as receive him, to them he gave you the right to become the children of God, even to them that believe who were born. Their believing is the evidence that they were born, and their being born of God is the root of their faith in the Son of God. So I come back to the first fundamental observation. No one has any biblical grounds to believe in self-regenerated who is not a penitent believing sinner.

The Folly of Baptismal Regeneration

24:14 Now if that's so, and I believe these passages and many others establish it, behold with me in the first place the folly of the teaching of baptismal regeneration. The teaching of baptismal regeneration is that when water is applied to an adult or an infant, it automatically results in the impartation of new life. Now there are different degrees and kinds of teaching on baptismal regeneration and I am not theologically or historically ignorant by lumping them all together. But a Lord's Day morning service is not the place to go into the vagaries of theological aberration.

24:54 But suffice it to say that baptismal regeneration in all of its forms has this magical idea that the water dispensed from the hands of the holy man will somehow accomplish holy things in the individual, whether it simply takes away original sin or actual sin or results in their being born of the Spirit and their different decrees of the teaching. But one thing is clear, that if God has joined together penitence and faith and the new birth, then the doctrine of baptismal regeneration is the sheerest kind of folly. How can unconscious infants who cannot exercise faith, or ignorant, uninstructed adults who have no substance of truth upon which to pin their faith,

25:46 how can they be regenerate? You see, regeneration, repentance, and faith are always found together. So where there can be no faith, there is no regeneration.

The Folly of Presumptive Regeneration

26:01 And so the folly of baptismal regeneration should be evident to all of us. Then I want to move on and underscore, growing out of this first principle, that we behold the folly of what has been called presumptive regeneration. Now that teaching is simply this. that if you've got the right parentage, you've got a mother and dad that love God and love his son and trust in him and give evidence of being regenerate, and you happen to be born in that family, why then it is proper to presume that somewhere along the line, probably at your infant baptism, you were regenerate.

26:42 Now let me pause to say, not all who baptize infants teach this. It be unfair to say they do They do not But great segments of the Christian church historically have taught this Now only a few have been bold enough to say they actually teach it and believe it Abraham Kuyper was one of them. If you have any questions, read his treatise on the work of the Holy Spirit, and someone will have to pull you off the ceiling when you read some of the statements he makes about presuming that our children are regenerate. Probably, he says, most of them when they are baptized as infants.

27:17 Well, this position goes on to say then, we presume that the mysterious work of regeneration has occurred probably way, way back at their baptism in an infancy, and we do not preach to them or regard them as anything other than regenerate until by their actions they make it very evident that they aren't.

27:39 You know, you're innocent until proven guilty? Well, it's sort of carried over into theology. Now, what may make good jurisprudence in a free society He makes bad theology. Because God says our condition is totally bad until it is radically changed by the new birth.

27:57 And the doctrine of presumptive regeneration separates faith and repentance from regeneration. And you will read in Kuyper saying that no doubt there are many, many children regenerate in infancy who live many, many years a life of rebellion, a life of sensuality, and not till many, many later years are they converted and come to repentance and faith, but they've been regenerated all along. Well, we go back to 1 John 5. 1, Whoso believeth has been begotten, and if the divine beginning has occurred, the immediate effect is what?

28:39 Repentance and faith. Not with ten or twenty or thirty years between. No such teaching can be supported by the word of God. Ah, but someone says, didn't God say to Jeremiah, before you came out of the womb I sanctified thee?

28:54 Yes. But exegetically, that is no case for infant regeneration.

29:01 It means plain and simple that God had marked him out for the prophetic office long before he became of age to be a prophet. Oh, but John the Baptist was filled with the spirit from his mother's womb. Yes, he was. But it doesn't say he was regenerate.

29:15 And God filled men with his spirit who obviously were never regenerate.

29:20 Oh, but you say he could have been regenerate. Yes, he could have been, but it doesn't say he was. And even if you could prove he was, your name is not John the Baptist, and you don't make God's exceptions your rules.

29:32 So we dispense of John the Baptist and Jeremiah. Oh, but he says, suffer the little children to come unto me. That's right. Let them come.

29:39 And if they're regenerate, they will come, children or adults. But don't believe they're regenerate until they do come.

29:46 Why did he say let them come? Because unless they come, they have no grounds to believe they're saved. And neither do we have grounds to believe they're saved. And when you've dispensed of those three texts, it seems you don't have much left.

30:01 You say, Pastor, you're caricaturing the position. I believe it needs to be caricatured because it's a grotesque and damnable position to presume that anyone is regenerate until there are the fruits of faith and of repentance.

The Folly of Decisional Regeneration

30:20 Then, thirdly, behold, growing out of this first clear teaching, no one has any biblical grounds to believe himself regenerate who is not a penitent believing sinner. Behold not only the folly of baptismal regeneration, the folly of presumptive regeneration, but the folly of what one has called in our day decisional regeneration. Here's the teaching. If you'll nod your head to three verses, all of sin comes short of the glory of God.

30:47 Christ died for sinners and say, Oh Lord, I'm a sinner, I believe that. You get yourself born again. You hear people say, Believe that you might be born again, or accept Jesus Christ that you might be born again. And then when people have made their decision, they are told, you are now born again.

31:03 You can't get unborn. And then they give illustrations of how ridiculous it is. Once someone's born, he's born. Whether he lives five years, ten years, twenty years, good life, bad life, intelligent, ignorant.

31:14 Once you're born, you can't get unborn. And now you've made your decision. And by your decision, you have entered the realm of the new birth. And you can't get unborn.

31:23 You can live like the devil. You can turn away from Christ. You may lose a few rewards. but you're born again by virtue of your decision.

31:32 Well, the text says, He that believeth, present tense, that Jesus is the Christ has been begotten of God. You see the divine begetting issues in something more than a decision. It may involve a conscious decision, and a person may know, even the day or the hour, they may, they may not, they may know when there was conscious coming to Christ, yes. But my friend, listen, to rest in some decision is the evidence of your new birth.

32:03 Without the continuous fruits of the new birth is perhaps to rest upon a lie.

32:12 You see the folly of this? The immediate effect of regeneration is true repentance and faith. and the only way we can know the validity of any professed repentance or faith is its continuous fruits. Bring forth therefore fruits, meat for repentance is the Word of God.

Deduction 2: No Grounds to Doubt If You Are a Penitent Believing Sinner

32:35 And so if we understand this very simple principle that no one has any biblical grounds to believe himself regenerate who is not a penitent believing sinner, We shall be kept from these errors that have slain their multitudes. The folly of baptismal regeneration, presumptive regeneration, and decisional regeneration. But then there is a second great principle that grows out of this, and I'm stating it this way. No one has any grounds to doubt his regeneration if he is a penitent believing sinner.

33:15 Just as surely as no one has any grounds to believe himself regenerate if he is not a penitent believing sinner, no one has any grounds to doubt his regeneration if he is a penitent believing sinner. Look at the text again. He that believeth that Jesus is the Christ has been begotten of God. But, now oft times, God's work in the divine beginning is precisely what Jesus said it would be in John 3.

33:49 The wind blows where it wills. You hear the voice thereof. You can't tell where it comes from, where it goes. So is everyone that is born of the Spirit.

34:04 In other words, there is an element of mystery in the work of the Spirit. And oft times people cannot trace with a map-like accuracy the dealings of God with them in bringing them out of death and into life. Therefore I say this morning, behold the folly of undue concern because of ignorance regarding the time and circumstances of your regeneration. It is sheer folly to have undue concern because of ignorance or imprecision with regard to knowing the precise time and circumstances of your regeneration.

34:49 This is particularly true if you have been brought up under the sound of the gospel and in a Christian family. oft times there are stirrings of conscience and awakenings of the mind and spirit and where a child is deeply agitated and for a time may fervently pray and search the scriptures and as parents you say well hopefully, hopefully maybe God has called them out of the tomb of sin and death perhaps these are the signs of life and then it all seems to peter out and they may go weeks and months or years and there's no real evidence of faith and its holy fruits. And you pray for them as though they're unregenerate because you don't presume and you see no real evidence. And then there's another stirring and there seems to be something happening

35:35 and then it comes to naught. Well, when God finally brings that child to a place where Christ is truly loved and there is something of the constancy of loving, trustful attachment to the Son of God and His ways, then that person hears a sermon. If you don't know the time when you were saved, you're not saved. And he gets all shaken up.

35:58 My friend, don't let anyone shake you up. Do you right now believe that Jesus is the Christ and all that that involves? Do you with all your heart rest only in Christ as the ground of your salvation? And do you with your heart long to please Him, not perfectly, not with absolute evenness of devotion, but is the bent and direction of your life in His precepts, in His commandment, towards His people, towards His law?

36:32 My friend, he that believeth has been begotten of God. Whether he can point to the time and sort out the strands of God's dealings, that is utterly inconsequential. Will you doubt you're standing before an oak tree simply because you cannot find a little sign telling you the day and the hour when the acorn was placed in the ground?

37:02 You're snickering. Why? You say, that's stupid. Imagine a man standing in front of a mighty oak, spreading its boughs and all of its foliage.

37:12 No oak tree there. No oak tree there. No oak tree there. I say, sir, are you blind?

37:20 Why no oak tree? I've walked all around this tree. I can't find a sign, a plaque. I can't find it etched in there.

37:27 When the acorn fell in the ground, until I know when the acorn fell, no oak tree. You say the man's a fool. Well, at least it may be innocent folly. But when you see dear children of God who give all the evidences of new life in Christ troubling themselves because they can't point to the day, the hour, the week, the year.

37:50 That's folly. There's not a verse in the Bible that says you've got to. Do you believe? Then God says you're begotten.

37:59 You say, that's too simple. Well, my friend, maybe it's about time you got off your high horse of making some things more complicated than God has.

The Cruelty of Demanding a Precise Conversion Date

38:08 No one has any grounds to doubt his regeneration. If he is presently a penitent believing sinner, behold the folly of undue concern because of ignorance regarding the time and circumstances. And then secondly, behold the cruelty of those who trouble the saints with unwarranted demands. Behold the cruelty of those who trouble the saints with unwarranted demands.

38:37 They say if you can't point to the time, If you don't know when, I remember being accosted one time preaching in Scotland. Usually, after a while, the Lord helps you to develop a sort of a feeler system, to know when to suddenly be in a hurry to get somewhere else when certain kind of people approach you. And as soon as I was done preaching on 2 Corinthians 5.17 in this particular church in Glasgow several years ago, this man made a peline for me, and I could tell from the look in his eye, he didn't come to learn, he came to be my instructor.

39:09 And he nailed me before I could even get out from the alleyway behind the pulpit in the side entrance out amongst the people. And I saw many friends who I had not seen for many years. Someone who had driven many, many miles to be at that meeting and see me. But he nailed me.

39:24 And among other things, what disturbed him was that in the sermon, I believe I mentioned that I didn't know when I was saved. Well, he really took hold of me. And before long, he was convinced I was unconverted. And then he and some of his disciples even wrote me letters telling me they're praying for me, that I would really get saved and know it.

39:45 Well, I said, I have no problem saying I know I'm saved. I simply said, I don't know when.

39:52 I don't know when. And frankly, I don't care.

39:59 The concern is that I am. and I know enough of my heart to know I would not presently be a believer on the Lord Jesus Christ unless God had regenerated me I know that I could not and would not come unless I had been drawn of the Father How and where I do not know because I was describing myself earlier and some of you perhaps knew that Having many stirrings as a lad, many nights afraid to go to sleep for fear I'd wake up in hell, praying, crying, weeping at times over my sins. and then it would all peter out

40:46 and I'd be besotten by the flesh and the world and ambition and as though there were no God or Christ or Bible except for those quiet moments before I'd drift off to sleep and I'd have troublings of conscience. Those things never left me, but that was all. But then there'd be other times when I'd be found reading my Bible and associating with God's people and my parents had hopes that perhaps I had been born of the Spirit of God and truly converted. And there was all of this.

41:17 But all I know is somewhere between the fall of 1951 and the early spring of 1952, I was a new man in Christ.

41:30 And it stuck.

41:32 You don't need to know arithmetic very well to subtract 1952 from 1979 and know that it's getting on to the 27th year. And there's only one reason that I'm still in the way. He that is begotten of God believeth. He that believeth has been begotten.

41:54 Now, I speak particularly to some of you in whom God's dealings were perhaps more dramatic and more traceable. You do have a plaque before the oak tree. Some of you got nothing but a plaque saying there's a mighty oak here and that's all you've got. You've just got a record in your Bible as to when you made your almighty decision.

42:15 But there is no oak tree of a developing Christian character. My friend, you go to hell clinging to your plaque if that's all you've got. Some of you have got both an oak tree and a plaque. Some of us just have an oak tree and no plaque.

42:31 The ways of the Spirit are like the wind. Now, will you just let God be God in the way He saves His people? And don't be cruel and tell people if you've been in the habit of doing it, well, this is the way the Lord dealt with me. Has He dealt with me?

42:44 No, no, no, my friend. The important thing is, are you presently attached to Christ in faith?

Deduction 3: No Grounds to Expect Regeneration Where the Gospel Is Absent

42:53 And then there is one final word I would bring to you this morning. No one has grounds to expect the regenerating work of God. where the gospel is not present. All right, you see these three deductions that come out of our teaching this morning?

43:12 What is the first effect of regeneration? Repentance and faith. If that's so, no one should doubt his regeneration if he's a believing and penitent sinner. No one should regard himself regenerate if he's not a penitent believing sinner.

43:28 And thirdly, no one has grounds to expect the regenerating work of God to occur where the gospel is not present. Now listen very carefully. I am not saying it does not occur where the gospel is not present. What God may do with infants, with mentally retarded people, with people who never hear the gospel, I don't know what God may do.

43:54 And I would not be so blasphemous as to say, God cannot do this or that concerning something about which he's been silent.

44:05 If God regenerates infants and takes them to heaven, he obviously does it without the gospel or belief of the gospel, at least down here. I don't know. I have to be silent where God is. But notice what I'm saying.

44:18 We have no grounds to expect the regenerating work to occur where the Gospel is not present. Why? Well, think now of what we've been studying. If the first effect of regeneration is to come to Christ, if God were to regenerate people and Christ was not there in the Gospel, to what would they come?

44:39 It's like pulling the glasses off the man and not putting the meal in front of him. What would he eat? You see, he that believed it has been begotten. And therefore, where God is going to do the work of begetting, He gets the gospel there.

44:54 You see, when Jesus said, Lazarus, come forth, Christ was there to receive him when he called him. And wherever Christ is going to call men to life, he comes in the gospel. How shall they call on him whom they have not heard? How shall they hear without a preacher?

45:16 Faith cometh of hearing, hearing by the word of God. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. And you see, in the whole complex of the way God saves men, He brings the gospel. Now granted, the gospel has no power of itself to regenerate men.

45:34 We've said it is exclusively a work of divine power. But it's interesting, is it not, that truth is so vital in the whole complex that God's not at all fastidious about saying we're begotten again by the truth. James 1.18 If his own will begat he us by the word of truth 1 Peter 1.23 Having been born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the word of God and to my knowledge there is no place recorded in scripture where God ever says he regenerated someone without having brought the gospel to him.

46:15 Now if you find such a thing I'd like to know of it and that's not a nasty stick out a tin challenge That's an earnest entreating.

46:23 God gets the truth there. Why? So that the moment He quickens the sinner to life, the living sinner has a living Christ to embrace by faith.

46:35 And oh, dear people, that being so, in understanding that simple principle, then we'll want to sow gospel seed bountifully. For he that soweth bountifully shall reap bountifully. I don't know how many sinners God's going to regenerate, but I do know that if He regenerates them where the gospel is, and I long to see God give sinners life, then I'll get the gospel to as many sinners as I can get it to. And then I'll cry to God to do what I can't do and what the gospel in and of itself cannot do.

47:06 That is give them life.

47:09 You see, we tempt God. If we pray that He'd regenerate sinners and then don't bring the gospel to sinners, and then we're guilty of presumption if we simply bring the gospel to sinners and then don't cry to God to do what we cannot do. So you see, the only individual or group of individuals who are walking biblically are those who evangelize aggressively and pray fervently. And that's a stumbling block to human thought processes.

47:37 People say, well, if I believe that God has to regenerate them and a sinner can't do it, no man can. If I believed all that, I wouldn't evangelize it. Sit back and wait for God to do it. Well, if you did, you'd be guilty of wickedness.

47:48 Because God never said He'd do it while you sit back and wait for Him to do it. He's told you and told me, take the gospel to every creature. Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel. Oh, you said, if I believed God did it, where and when and how He will, I wouldn't pray.

48:04 Why pray? Oh, because God has said that our prayers are somehow bound up in His giving of the Spirit. can these bones live he says to his prophet and the prophet says oh Lord thou knowest then God says a strange thing he says start preaching to the bones well whoever heard of anything so stupid preach into bones they can't laugh they can't cry they can't give you an offering can't do anything preach the bones God says preach And then God summons the breath of the Almighty. Come, O breath of God.

48:46 And while He's preaching, the breath of God comes. And they stand up a mighty army. What a beautiful picture of what we're talking about now. The Lord Jesus is going to have His mighty army out of every kindred, tribe, and tongue and nation.

49:03 And how are they going to be brought? God will use the instrumentality of preaching. But it will be preaching upon which God Himself is come with the dunamis of heaven. And He will open blinded eyes.

49:19 He will unstop deafened ears. He will pull off those glasses. And then when He does, the offered Savior will be there. See, when you see how this ties in with calling, some of you perhaps have already made the relationship.

49:34 Remember, we made the point that the internal call never comes apart from the framework of the what? Of the general call. See? Well, we're right in that same ballpark.

Summary: Conversion Is Regeneration Issuing in Repentance and Faith

49:44 The inward regenerating work of God comes in the context of the overtures of the gospel and the proclamation of a glorious and a wonderful Savior. Well then, we come around full circle to where we began this morning. What is the first effect, the immediate effect of regeneration? It is repentance and faith.

50:07 This is why the old theologian said, Regeneration then issues in conversion, for conversion is just a term used to describe the repenting and the believing. Now if that is true, and it is clearly established by such text as 1 John 5, one, he that believeth that Jesus is the Christ hath been begotten of God, then I trust you will embrace these deductions that we've set before you this morning. None of you has any biblical grounds to believe yourself regenerate unless you are a penitent believing sinner. None of you has any grounds to doubt your regeneration if you are a penitent and believing sinner, and none of us has

50:53 grounds to expect that regenerating work of God to occur where the gospel is not present. Oh, that we may be filled with new zeal to preach that message which becomes the context within which Almighty God effects this amazing work. And then may we plead with the God of heaven in the consciousness that He alone can bring sinners out of the tomb of death. Oh, what a happy shepherd of sheep is that pastor and those elders who see in their people trevency of prayer and zeal to evangelize.

51:37 May God grant that that will be our joy to God's glory and to the blessing of sinners. Let us pray.

Closing Prayer

51:49 Our Father, we acknowledge that we have been treading in dangerous waters this morning, where so many of your people in the history of the Church have erred on the left hand and on the right. And oh, how we pray for grace to steer an accurate course, clinging to the Scriptures, mortifying all carnal logic and human objections, having minds that are sweetly submissive to all the dictates of Scripture. We do thank you for the reality of the new birth, those of us who have been born of your Spirit,

52:35 how we bless you, O Lord, that you gave us life when we had none of our own. and we thank you that the first actings of that life were indeed to us precious actings as Christ became dear to us as we found our joy in the knowledge that his blood cleanses from all sin and as we have continued in the development of that life to know him, to follow him, to walk with him and oh we pray for those who sit here this morning like the man with those glasses who look upon all of this as mere garbage or unnecessary luxuries. O mighty God, come, we pray,

53:21 and open their blinded eyes. Redirect those perverse affections and loose their enfeebled wills that they may run to Your Son in repentance and faith. Seal then the word to our hearts and continue with us through this day and glorify the name of your own dear Son. We plead in His name.

53:48 Amen.