(John 3:11)
�Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.�
Jesus had just chided Nicodemus for not understanding the rudiments of the faith. The New Birth is actually the entry way into fellowship with God. It is �ground zero.� Without the New Birth there is no way to actually experience God.
This was a problem for Nicodemus. Here was a man who was supposed to be a priest. His job, as a priest, was to bring the concerns of man up before God. Yet, Nicodemus was not in a position to approach God. In order to do this he would need to have this New Birth experience of which Jesus had spoken.
But, Nicodemus could not understand, let alone experience, the New Birth. It was a foreign, and a confusing, term to his ears.
This is where the Savior came in. Jesus began to explain the meaning of the New Birth, and to also explain why Nicodemus was unable to understand. This points up an important New Testament truth: God always moves toward us. We never move toward God, as sinners, until He has called us unto Himself. This is the calling and wooing of the Spirit.
This is why we can never properly fulfill the Great Commission duty to spread the Gospel unless we are willing to pray for those who need the Lord. I believe that this should always be a specific prayer. It isn�t enough to pray, �Lord, be with all the people who need You.� We need to pray, �Lord, place your convicting hand upon John and Jennifer,� or whoever it is that we are dealing with.
Praying for specific people even helps our own faith as we see the results of our prayers answered.
There are times when this prayer is a silent prayer offered as we begin to deal with a person we might not know. But, this fact of prayer is an �every time� necessity. We can only give the message. Only God can energize the message in the heart of another!
We see here that Jesus was not speaking falseness. �Verily, verily, I say unto thee��
The word �verily� means �in truth.� It is a root of the word �verify. � To verify something is to prove that it is correct. In modern speech we might say, �I�m not kidding about this.� As He quite often did, Jesus doubled the �verily.� It was important that Nicodemus not misunderstand the truth of what Jesus had to say.
I think it important that we see Jesus was speaking directly to Nicodemus. Before, Nicodemus might have considered that they were speaking theory. Nicodemus had asked� Actually, if we read the account closely we will se that Nicodemus had not asked anything. He had simply said that Jesus was obviously a teacher sent from God. Nicodemus reasoned that the miracles of Jesus proved this point.
That is sort of a dangerous position to take. Satan can transform himself into a seeming angel of light. Satan is a powerful adversary. When Moses threw down his rod in front of Pharaoh it turned into a snake. The �black magic magicians,� in league with Satan, were able to do the same.
Great works do not always equate with great, true, Spirituality. I capitalized �Spirituality� because I meant it to refer to God. Satan is also a being of the spirit world. He can confuse us. This is why we need to be in this Book. The Bible, and a familiarity with the contents of God�s message contained therein, is our guide. Any preaching or teach which conflicts with the Words of God contained herein is false teaching. From all such stay away.
At this point Jesus made it clear that He was not speaking in theory. Jesus emphasized the truth of His teaching. He also made it clear that He was speaking directly to Nicodemus. �Ye� must be born again. The pronoun �ye� is a word that is directed toward a single individual. �You� applies to groups. Jesus made it clear that He was speaking directly to Nicodemus.
Jesus made it clear that Nicodemus needed the New Birth. Nicodemus was one of the most respected theologians of his day: He was a member of the Pharisees. But, all of his religious prestige, learning, and personal piety had left him with a soul that was filled through and through with sin. He needed to be Born Again.
All of the good works, and all of the religious works, of Nicodemus did not guarantee him salvation. Only the New Birth could do this!
Jesus was also speaking demonstrably to Nicodemus. That word �ye� left no doubt that Jesus meant Nicodemus. Add to this the phrase �verily, verily� and we can almost see Jesus with a finger pointing directly to the heart of Nicodemus.
Jesus was passionate on this point. Jesus saw through the veneer of religiosity and respectability of Nicodemus� position in the religion. Jesus saw past the exemplary family life of this Pharisee. Jesus saw past the years of religious training which was the �life style� of this religious professional. Jesus even saw past the compliments and polished manner of a person of high birth and standing in society.
Jesus saw past all this and looked upon a heart that was filled with sin. Jesus ignored the trappings of religious prestige and saw a man who was on his way to Hell. The great love of Jesus for the lost soul welled up in His speech. He looked directly into the eyes of Nicodemus and said, �You, not somebody else, need to be born again.� This was important. Jesus could feed the five thousand and assuage their hunger for a few hours. Jesus could heal the leper and raise the dead; He could restore the physical life of a child. But, Jesus knew that this physical life would soon past! He longed for Nicodemus to find that there was a life past what we see, feel, hear and touch. Jesus wanted Nicodemus to be made whole for all eternity.
�Ye must be born again!�
Jesus spoke determinedly to Nicodemus.
I read some announcements during the church service today. The announcements were all about �Para church� activities in the area. There were concerts being given that the Christian might enjoy. There was political activism being planned to seek to prevent the slaughter of the innocents at the abortion mills. These are good and noble causes. But, what of the day after?
There is an old story told that if a man is given a fish he will have a meal. But, if the same man is taught how to fish, he may never need another meal given to him; he will �catch� his own meals and be self sufficient.
Folks, what good does it do for a man to be wealthy, healthy, wise and happy in this life if he never meets the Savior until he stands before Jesus and only sees Him as the Judge of humanity? A truly good life will not lead to a Christless eternity! That isn�t a �good life;� that is a wasted life!
Worse, that is a life that will spend an eternity without wealth, without health, without the knowledge of the Savior�s love, and a life that is regretful and tormented for eternity.
We call ourselves �Christians.� That word means �followers of Christ.� Folks, Jesus does not lead us to a circus tent unless we are sent to speak of sin and salvation. Jesus sends us to the lost, the dying, and the dredges of humanity oftentimes, with the message that they are loved. Jesus Christ died in time so that they could live in eternity.
Have we determined to follow Jesus in the task of calling sinners to repentance, or have we simply touched the hem of His garment and held on for �dear life.�
We also note, here, that Jesus was not speaking fable. ��We speak that we do know��
Jesus was able to speak from experience. He knew from firsthand experience what it was He spoke about.
Poe spoke of the darkly spiritual in his famous poem, �The Raven.�
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping at my chamber door.
�Tis some visitor,� I muttered, �tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more.�
We all know the poem. Probably most of us had to memorize the lines in some high school or college literature class. But, as far as telling of the actually spiritual, Poe wasn�t even whistling in the dark. He had no concept, it seems, of the truth of the spiritual realms.
Why should he? Poe, like the rest of us was simply a creature of this physical world. He could no nothing of the spiritual. The only way he could have found the truth of the spiritual would have been to have had a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Jesus knows, present tense, the realities of both this world and the world to come. Back here, in the time frame of our text verse, Jesus knew the truly spiritual. The intent of Jesus was to impart the simple truth of the spiritual world to Nicodemus. Jesus wanted Nicodemus to understand that he, Nicodemus, needed to be born again.
Jesus spoke to Nicodemus from eternity. Notice that I didn�t simply say that Jesus spoke from the standpoint of eternity. Jesus spoke from eternity. Look, again, at verse thirteen of this third chapter of John. �And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.�
That is an amazing concept to consider. While speaking with Nicodemus from a dark city street in, approximately, the 25 AD time frame, Jesus was in the Heavenly realms. This is just one more instance of the Scripture pointing out that Jesus is God. God is omnipresent. That is a big theological word that simply means that God is in all places at all times.
His glory fills the Halls of Heaven.
His glory spills through all Creation.
The wonder of His works are known,
Where the power of His arm is shown.
The righteous cannot from His presence depart.
The wicked are known to Him, they have their part.
If all the world were our hiding place,
God would find us to offer grace.
From His love we cannot hide,
For every place is by His side.
Jesus also speaks emphatically with Nicodemus.
Some have made this idea of soul winning a game. Like the �gunfighter� of the old West, we�ve fashioned pearl handles for our Bibles and Sunday School attendance boards. We are out to find �notches� for our own glory.
Folks, may it never be!
Jesus took the time to tenderly instruct Nicodemus because He loved the soul of Nicodemus. Jesus loves the soul of the sinner so much that He went to the Cross of Calvary so that each and every single sinner could have the opportunity to find grace in His sight.
We are not to be about �building a ministry.� We are not to proudly become �more spiritual� than others. We are not to become �Super Christian� so others can look up to us. We are to be so burdened with the fate of lost souls that we will forget our own agenda�s, we will cast our own ego�s to the side of the road, we will see only the fact that the Love of Jesus wants to save others. We are to so love Jesus, ourselves, that we will want to see His will fulfilled at every opportunity.
Jesus was not using hard to understand concepts. Jesus was not speaking fancy. ��and testify that we have seen��
Jesus spoke very plainly to Nicodemus.
If I had just returned from a visit to a foreign nation and wanted to give you an idea of what I had seen, I would give you copies of all the pictures I had taken while in that land.
A few years ago I was corresponding with a church group from the Philippine Islands. They sent me pictures of the countryside around where they lived. One of the pictures was of a volcano. I had never seen such a picture of the power of a volcanic eruption! It gave me a sense of what they were talking about within their mailings.
But, suppose there were no pictures. This doesn�t present a real problem to a good essayist. He simply �paints word pictures.� Rather than saying that a tidal wave produces �a whole lotta water in a short time,� he would probably talk of a wall of water moving forward with the destructive fury of an out of control locomotive - if the locomotive were fifteen miles long. He would say it took out cars, trees, buildings - everything in its path. It struck so harshly it seemed to be taking retribution for some unknown slight that the land had done to the sea. The sea was clearing the land, preparing the appearance of a clutter parking lot where they had once been home, shop, and people. Like an overzealous dishwasher, the sea was scouring the plate of the land with such vigor as to remove even memory.
Jesus was giving a �word picture� of a land where Nicodemus had never been, never understood, and - truth is told - never imagined. Jesus was doing this in such a way as to impress upon Nicodemus the need for the New Birth.
In this Jesus was also speaking prophetically. The word of the prophet is not, necessarily, the word of future events. Properly the purpose of the prophet is to speak the communication of God to the people.
The purpose of the priest is to take the needs of the people and lay them before the Throne of Grace. The purpose of the prophet is to take the Word of the Lord, the solution to the need of the people, and apply these truths to the understanding of the people.
There are times when the people do not even understand that they are in need. The people might think they need a quail dinner. God says, �No. You need the manna from heaven.�
Nicodemus was in that situation. He was majoring on the physical aspect because that was all he really understood. Jesus said that the real need of Nicodemus was the spiritual. �Ye must be born again.�
Jesus spoke practically to Nicodemus.
Sometimes the ways of God are so simple and direct that people get lost looking for turns and exit ramps where none exist. About fifty miles North of where I am sitting Interstate 80 passes through the �Quad Cities� area of Illinois and Iowa. For some reason known only to the people who planned and built the road, one must turn off of I-80, about fifteen miles into Illinois, in order to remain on I-80.
If a person doesn�t turn off the road he is on, I-80, in order to remain on I-80, he will find that the road he is on has suddenly become I-74. A brother of mine had a gas station in this town, about fifty miles from this interchange. It was amazing how many people pulled into his station to ask how they could get back to the road leading to Chicago instead of continuing to Indianapolis.
The practical thing, in order to reach one�s destination, is to simply follow the signs. It is so simple that many people get confused because they think they know how to drive an Interstate Highway; they aren�t going to let some silly directions on an inanimate sign override their instinct to continue forward.
Jesus spoke practically to Nicodemus. It was up to Nicodemus to accept, even when he might not have completely understood all, the Words of the Master which pointed to Heaven.
Sadly, at one point Jesus was speaking for Nicodemus. Jesus said, ��and ye receive not our witness.�
Will Rogers, the great radio comedian of the early part of the twentieth century, once remarked, �I�ve never met a man I didn�t like.�
A politician would be quick to retort, �Mr. Rogers must have never met my opponent.�
A politician is an unusually discerning judge of humanity. If a person is of the opposite party, they can do no good. Even their motives are suspect if they have the wrong letter after their name. But, if a person is of their party, no matter how despicable a scalawag that person might be, they are judged as honorable and civic minded. This is true unless, of course, that person is running against them in a primary.
After the primary the person seems rehabilitated in the eyes of his once opponent.
Aren�t you glad the Jesus isn�t a politician! Jesus always speaks fact.
When Jesus said that Nicodemus, the man who had asked Jesus for advice on spiritual matters, wasn�t disposed to listen to the Words of Life, He was stating an obvious fact. It was true. Indeed, as a member of the Pharisee sect, Nicodemus - along with his group - had little real use for Jesus, or for John the Baptist, Jesus� forerunner.
They weren�t part of the �establishment church.� One thing you can always count on: When the establishment church disregards the plain teaching of Scripture, that church is established on the shifting sand of man�s theories and culture rather than the Solid Rock of Jesus Christ and the Word of God.
From all such �established churches� which disregard the Words of God, start by turning from them. Continue by running from them until you are safe in the Arms of the Savior!
Jesus spoke of this failure of Nicodemus.
I do not believe that we should be negative towards people. Generally we can not win those we have insulted.
Jesus said to His disciples, �Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.� (Matthew 10:16)
Generally when a sheep and a wolf meet at a party the wolf is the aggressive one; the sheep is pretty much non aggressive. He just isn�t a fighter. He does have something that the wolf wants and shares it pretty easily.
Unfortunately, for the sheep, what the wolf wants is food. The sheep dies in the transaction.
Folks, we have the spiritual food that the wolves of the world need. We have already died with Christ. Paul was talking about the Christian having �died� to sin and carnality when he made the following observation.
�Now if we be dead with Christ; we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.� (Romans 6:8-11)
We are sheep. Our purpose in the �animal kingdom� is giving that spiritual food to the wolves of the world so that they might find life eternal. We don�t have to fight and shove it down their throat. No. If we are really living like sheep their hunger pangs of conviction will send them to us.
If we are in the Word on a regular basis, and if we are in communion -praying unto God - on a regular basis, the wolves of the world will be drawn to the meal the Savior prepared nearly two thousand years ago!
But, we do need to be at least as wise as the world. If I walk into a used car lot the salesman will not snicker about my clothing or mannerisms. He couldn�t care less about anything I may say or do; he is in business to sell cars.
Folks, we need to be as wise as that used car salesman.
Sorry about equating a used car salesman with a serpent. I was more interested in show casing their wisdom than attacking their character. The point is, simply, that the world is often wiser in its own ways than we are in spiritual ways.
Isn�t the soul of a man more important than the car he might drive!
Christian, be wise in your witness. You never condone sin. But you always must lift up the Savior.
This is something Jesus spoke of often. Jesus speaks of forgiveness.
Our witness is never wasted. Any time we sow the Words of God we are laboring for the eternal values. We are laboring for the souls of men.
Jesus is here, today, ready to call you to Himself. Your sins? He knows about them and is ready to forgive you. Jesus simply calls you to Himself. Bring your sins and failures to His altar and accept the forgiveness He has for you.
5 October 2008