Thank you.
Thanks converting the program to this class.
Thank you time and the final Enjoy section.
Lift it up nice and strong on that first verse.
Off times the day seems long.
Pin number 81.
Sing it out together.
Off times the day seems long.
Our trials are to bear.
Pretended to complain.
To fervor and despair.
The prize will soon appear.
Of tears forever over in God's eternal name.
It will be worth it all when we see Jesus.
All sorrows will erase.
So bravely run the race.
Till we see Christ.
Before we sing that second verse, who here is excited about seeing Jesus one day?
Amen.
Let's sing it out like we're excited, right?
On that second verse, sometimes the sky looks dark.
Sometimes the sky looks dark.
With not a ray of light, we're tossed and driven on.
It will be worth it all when we see Jesus.
On that second verse, sometimes the sky looks dark.
With not a ray of light, we're tossed and driven on.
It will be worth it all when we see Jesus.
All sorrows will erase.
So bravely run the race.
Till we see Christ.
Amen.
Good singing.
All right.
This time we'll pass our offering plates around.
As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to John chapter three, Gospel of John chapter
number three.
As we always do, we'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number one.
Amen.
Dear Lord, we thank you so much
for allowing us to gather here today.
We pray that you would fill Pastor Aniston
with your spirit, help him to preach boldly
and allow us to hear the message today
and receive it in our hearts, Lord.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Men, John chapter three is one of the most famous passages
in the entire Bible.
Of course, this is Jesus being confronted by Nicodemus,
who is a ruler of the Jews.
Nicodemus comes to him by night.
The Bible says in verse one,
there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus,
a ruler of the Jews.
The same came to Jesus by night and said unto him,
Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God,
for no man can do these miracles that thou doest,
except God be with him.
Jesus answered and said unto him,
verily, verily, I say unto thee,
except a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Now, what's interesting about this right away
is the fact that Nicodemus is a ruler of the Jews
and he basically is kind of speaking for them by saying,
well, we know that thou art a teacher come from God
because no man can do these miracles which thou doest,
except God be with them.
But of course, as we go throughout the book of John,
what we're gonna see over and over again
is that the leadership of the Jews, the rulers,
whether it's the rulers of the Pharisees,
the rulers of the scribes,
the rulers down at the temple with the Sadducees,
they don't believe in Jesus
and they're publicly very negative toward Jesus
and yet he makes this statement,
well, we know that you're a teacher come from God
for no man can do these miracles that thou doest,
except God be with them.
In fact, later in the book of John,
the rulers of the Jews are even gonna bring up the fact,
hey, none of the rulers have believed in him.
It's just these people who don't know the law,
they're cursed.
Do you see any of the big names
or the leaders of our religion believing in him?
They're gonna bring that up later on.
And yet Nicodemus secretly comes to him by night
and kind of admits, hey, we see the stuff you're doing,
we know that you're a teacher come from God.
Jesus replies to this by saying,
except a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God.
And so what's going on in this interaction
is that Nicodemus is saying,
well, I have to kind of acknowledge
or I know that you're a teacher come from God,
but then Jesus basically turn around and saying,
you're not saved.
You're not saved.
You guys aren't saved, including you yourself.
You're not even saved.
So apparently there's a difference
between just kind of knowing that Jesus is a teacher
come from God and actually being saved, right?
So an intellectual ascent to facts about Jesus
is not enough to be saved.
Saying, well, I know Jesus is a teacher come from God
or I know Jesus did these miracles
or I know that Jesus died on the cross
or was buried or rose again.
An intellectual ascent to facts is not enough to be saved.
You have to actually believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
in order to be saved.
And what that means is that you put your faith and trust
in Jesus as your savior,
meaning that you're relying on him to get you to heaven.
You're not relying on your own good works
or your adherence to the law
or any other religious process that you go through.
You know, you're putting all your faith
in what Jesus Christ has done for you as your savior.
You're trusting him.
That's what it means to be saved,
not to just merely assent to the facts about Jesus.
Now, how can a person say,
well, I know you're a teacher come from God
and then turn around and not believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ.
Seems kind of crazy, right?
If you know the guy is a teacher come from God,
then why don't you believe in him?
And the simple answer is his will.
He did not want to believe in Jesus.
The rulers of the Jews don't want to believe in Jesus.
They can't really deny what they're seeing has power.
They can't deny the miracles that Jesus is doing,
but yet they refuse to believe on him
because they don't want to believe on him.
And that's gonna be addressed a little bit later
in the chapter,
why some people don't wanna believe in Jesus.
But we can think of why the rules of the Jews
didn't wanna believe in Jesus,
because they wanna be kind of the top dogs.
They've been teaching a certain way.
They don't wanna admit that they've been wrong
about some of the things that they've been teaching.
And these are prideful people who believe
that they're going to heaven
because they're so religious and they're so good.
They want to earn their own way into heaven
through their works,
as opposed to just accepting a free gift of salvation.
And so Jesus basically just gets right to the point
by saying, you need to be saved,
except a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God.
And by the way, this is a good tip.
When someone comes up to you and they're not saved,
and they ask you questions about religion,
or they wanna talk to you about the Bible,
find a way to get on the subject of salvation,
because that's what people really need.
You could spend an hour or two hours
discussing some other Bible doctrine with someone,
but if they're not saved,
they're never really truly gonna get it, are they?
And so the best thing to do is to always try
to kinda direct the conversation toward salvation,
which is what Jesus does here.
He comes to him by night, he says, rabbi.
Now, what does the word rabbi mean?
Well, the word rabbi literally means my master.
In the sense of not master as in a master and a servant,
not master like boss,
but master like a master and a disciple,
like a Kung Fu master,
or like a school master or something, right?
So it's that type of master.
So he's basically giving him that title,
but coming to him humbly,
kind of submitting to him here and saying,
I wanna hear what you have to say, teach me.
But unfortunately, we're gonna go many more chapters
into the book of John,
and we're gonna see that Nicodemus is still kind of
on the fence about Jesus.
And he kind of halfway speaks up for Jesus publicly
later in the book in chapter number seven, I believe.
And then the other rule is just to shut him down
and just kinda shut his mouth.
And of course, he's there at the death of Christ
and so forth.
This sermon is not about Nicodemus though.
I wanna focus more on what this conversation entails.
And so Jesus says, except a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God, right?
In order to go to heaven,
in order to enter the kingdom of God,
you must be born again.
What does it mean to be born again?
Well, the first time you're born,
you're born to your human parents on this earth.
And then when you're born again,
you become a child of God.
And we've already seen that concept in the book of John,
cause in John chapter one, verse 12,
it said, as many as received him, referring to Jesus,
to them gave you power to become the sons of God,
even to them that believe on his name.
So everyone is not automatically a child of God.
A lot of people will say,
hey, we're all God's children, referring to all of humanity.
This is not true.
You become a child of God through faith in Christ.
You become a child of God by being born again.
That is what the new birth is.
The Bible says in verse four, Nicodemus saith unto him,
how could a man be born when he's old?
Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb
and be born?
Now, Nicodemus completely misses the point
because he's not saved.
And unsaved people cannot understand the things of God.
And so because of his lack of faith,
this goes over his head,
although he's an extremely educated man in the scripture,
he doesn't understand this.
And so he asked this silly question like,
oh, what am I gonna be born again?
Do I gotta go back in my mother's womb?
It's a stupid question, right?
Jesus answered, verily, verily, I say unto thee,
except a man be born of water and of the spirit,
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh
and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.
Marvel not that I said unto thee, you must be born again.
Now, here's the thing about being born again.
It doesn't say born three times.
It doesn't say get born again and again.
It says born again.
Now look, we've all already been born once.
So we need to be born again.
How many times is that?
One time, right?
We were born once into our earthly family.
Now we need to be born of the spirit.
We need to be born into God's family.
And so it's born again, not born a third time,
not born repeatedly, but just born again,
meaning one more time in addition to the time
that you've already done.
I mean, if I ate at a restaurant one time and I said,
I'm gonna eat there again, I'm going one more time.
Okay, that's what we're talking about here.
So a lot of people will twist this verse and look,
people who twist this verse is because they're not saved
because it's so easy to understand.
This is an extremely simple verse,
but unsaved people are sitting here like an academic
and they just don't get it because really
there's nothing complicated going on here.
Get born again.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh.
That which is born of the spirit is spirit.
So you've been born with respect to your flesh,
but now you need to be born with respect to your spirit.
You've been physically born,
now you need to be spiritually born.
Pretty easy to understand, right?
Here's what people will twist though.
They'll take this verse right here in verse number five.
Verily I say unto you, except man be born of water
and of the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
Here's what they say, oh, born of water, that's baptism.
That's baptism.
And they'll say, so you gotta be baptized.
And so basically what they're looking for
is like three birds.
Cause they're like, well, you've already been born
physically, but then you gotta get born of water.
Then you gotta get born of the spirit.
And to them, that is being, you know,
and they don't do real baptism.
They baptize you like this.
They go, that's how they baptize you.
Okay, they don't actually dunk you underwater
like the Bible says, but they baptism by spring.
No, they don't actually use spit, but they might as well,
because it's just as unbiblical.
And so the thing about, if you sit in the front row,
you might get a little spit on you, sorry.
It's a splash zone.
That's just a normal part of preaching anyway.
So here's the thing about that,
is that this is not baptism because the water birth
is referring to the physical birth.
Let the Bible define itself, right?
Because the Bible actually says,
except man be born of water and of the spirit,
he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh.
That was born of the spirit and spirit.
Notice how water has been replaced by flesh.
Now this is a common, common, common thing
throughout the Bible.
It's called parallelism, okay?
In the Old Testament, all Hebrew poetry
is based upon parallelism.
So have you ever noticed that when you're reading
the poetic books of the Bible, everything is stated twice.
So you're reading the book of Psalms,
it just states everything twice.
You're reading the book of Job, everything is said twice.
You read Proverbs, everything is said twice.
And it's like two halves of the verse
are like two sides of a coin.
And that's how Hebrew poetry works.
But it's not just Hebrew poetry,
it's also just the whole Bible is written in that way,
where you've got the books of the kings
and the books of the chronicles.
And it's like you have all these doublets,
all these couples, all these pairs,
where you say one thing one way, another thing another way,
and you replace different words,
and it gives you a deeper understanding
by getting the same statement twice.
So just to give you the super easiest example,
you can think about Psalm 2, famous Psalm, right?
Why do the heathen rage, that's one half of the verse,
and the people imagine a vain thing.
The kings of the earth set themselves,
the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord, against his anointed.
Do you see how these are parallels?
Okay, so this is what's going on in this passage.
There's a parallel here.
You have to be born of water and of the spirit.
Why do I have to be born of water and of the spirit?
Because that which is born of the flesh is flesh.
That's why the water birth's not gonna be enough.
That which is born of the spirit is spirit.
So marvel not that I said to you, you must be born again.
Now, why would being born of the flesh
be called being born of water?
Well, first of all, our bodies are 70% water
when it comes to our flesh body, how about that?
But not only that, the fact is that when a woman gives birth
her water breaks, right?
You are born in a sack of water.
It's called your bag of waters.
And so the water birth is you bursting forth
from your mother's womb in a gush of water.
That is the water birth.
And then there's the spiritual birth, which is subsequent,
which is when you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so don't let anybody dupe you into believing
that this is somehow saying you have to be baptized
to be saved.
Anyone who teaches that is a false teacher.
They're not safe.
And plus they have about as much spiritual understanding
as Nicodemus.
If they're going to read that and go, oh, baptism.
There's no way that baptism is what we're talking about.
It's totally alien to this context.
And the Bible defines it in the next verse,
that which is born of the flesh is flesh,
that which is born of the spirit is spirit.
Marvell not that I said it into thee, you must be born again.
The wind bloweth where it listeth,
and now here is the sound thereof,
but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth.
So is everyone that is born of the spirit.
So the Bible here is talking about the wind blowing.
And here's the thing about the wind.
You can't really see the wind itself per se, can you?
You can only see the effects of the wind.
Like you could see maybe leaves or something
that are being blown by the wind.
You can see a flag flapping in the wind.
So you're not really seeing the wind.
You're just seeing evidence of the wind
or the effect of the wind.
But the wind itself is invisible.
You can't tell, it says in verse number eight,
whence it cometh and whither it goeth.
It goes where it wants.
You can hear the sound of it,
but you can't really tell where it's going
and what it's doing because it's invisible
unless you have some wind sock
or something that you're using
to figure out what's going on.
Looking at the wind itself
isn't really gonna tell you anything about it.
And so the same goes for those that are born of the spirit,
meaning that you can't really look at someone
and see if they've been born again, right?
We can't really see inside their heart.
We can't see if their spirit is dead
or if their spirit is alive.
But there could obviously be evidence
that we could see where someone, for example,
says that they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
or someone speaks the word of God
and it seems that they have an understanding
of the word of God.
Or maybe we could see some kind of a transformation
in someone's life and say,
okay, yeah, this person probably really did get saved.
Those that are born of the spirit
cannot be outwardly identified necessarily
because this is a change that takes place in the heart.
When you get saved,
it's something that is happening inside you,
in your spirit, not in your physical body.
And so we don't always know who's saved and who's not.
There could be people that we think are saved
and it turns out they're not.
And vice versa, because we can't really see inside.
We can only look at the outside
and try to figure out whether people are saved or not,
but we can't really know for sure,
except we know that we ourselves for sure are saved
because we obviously know
whether we've believed in Jesus or not.
And so it says here,
the wind blow us where it listeth
and now here's the sound thereof,
but can't not tell when it cometh and whither it goeth.
So is everyone that is born of the spirit.
Nicodemus answered and said unto him,
how can these things be?
In verse 10, Jesus answered and said unto him,
art thou a master of Israel
and knowest not these things?
Like, so you're this religious leader,
you're a ruler of the Jews,
you're a master of Israel,
and yet you don't even know this most basic truth
of getting saved.
And let me tell you something,
there are all kinds of pastors, preachers, evangelists,
televangelists, radio evangelists,
there are people out there who maybe have studied
and gotten master's degrees and PhDs in theology
that are not saved.
Because you can be a master
and you can be a doctor of divinity
and you can have all of this training
and you can have the position of being looked up to
and people are looking to you
and then you're sneaking up to Jesus in the middle of life
being like, so what's, you know, what's going on here?
Can you tell me what's up with the new birth?
Because I don't even know.
Well, Jesus is like, well, you don't know much then.
If you're not even saved, how can you lead?
That's why Jesus is constantly calling these people
blind leaders of the blind.
And he says, if the blind lead the blind,
both of them are gonna fall into the ditch.
And the Pharisees, the scribes, the Sadducees,
the Jews at that time,
their leaders were blind leaders of the blind.
They're not saved.
Now, why is being saved called being born again?
Well, we already talked about the fact
that you become a child of God
when you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
but also you're made up of a body, a soul and a spirit.
And before you're saved, your spirit is dead.
But once you believe on Jesus Christ,
your spirit is quickened or brought to life or resurrected.
And it is resurrected not the same as it was before,
but it's actually resurrected as a new creature.
And of course, the resurrection of Christ pictures this.
Jesus Christ, when he died on the cross was buried.
And I'm talking about his body was physically buried
in the tomb, right?
His body was there dead for three days and three nights.
And then of course, Jesus Christ rose again from the dead.
But the body that rose again from the dead,
although it's the same body, it's transformed.
Because now Jesus is in a glorified body, okay?
Whereas before that, his body was more constrained
to the limitations that we as human beings have
of being tired, hungry, thirsty, and you know,
I mean, for example, when Jesus Christ
is risen from the dead,
they're all in the upper room together
and the doors are all shut and Jesus just enters the room
without going through, without the door opening.
Now, you don't see Jesus doing that before the resurrection.
You don't see him just walking through walls
or walking through doors, right?
But Jesus Christ's glorified body,
it's a different situation.
Now, the Bible also says that at Christ's second coming,
we will be resurrected, right?
The dead in Christ shall rise first.
Then we which are alive and remain shall be got up together
with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
And the Bible says we should not all sleep,
but we shall all be changed in a moment
in a twinkling of an eye.
This corruptible must put on incorruption.
This mortal must put on immortality.
And so in a moment, whether we've died
or whether we're alive at the time that Christ returns,
our mortal body, our corrupt body will be transformed
in a moment into an immortal body, an incorruptible body.
And so the body that's resurrected is different
than our current body.
So let's say you're blind or deaf
or you have a bum leg or something, right?
The new body, that's all gonna be fixed.
And so it's the same thing with the spirit.
When you believe on Jesus Christ, the spirit,
the resurrected spirit, the quickened spirit within you
is perfect, just like your glorified body someday
is gonna be perfect.
Your spirit's perfect.
So my body's not perfect.
My soul's not perfect, right?
But I do have a perfectly created, righteous spirit
within me, and that's the new creature in Christ.
And so the reason it's called a new birth
is because you have this new creature
that is born inside of you, your spirit.
Your spirit's born again.
It's a new creature, okay?
And so now that I'm saved, I have the flesh.
I still have the same sinful flesh,
including my sinful brain that's going to lead me astray
and cause me to sin, and then I also have that new man,
that inward man, that new creature of the spirit
that only wants to do what's right,
that only wants to serve God and love God.
And so now there's a war going on, a conflict every day.
Am I gonna walk in the spirit
or am I gonna walk in the flesh?
And so Jesus says to him,
"'Art thou a master of Israel?
"'No, it's not these things.'"
And by the way, that's the last
that we hear from Nicodemus.
Nicodemus is, in this chapter, I mean.
Nicodemus's last statement in this chapter is just,
well, how can these things be?
You know, he's just, he's not willing
to just believe what Jesus is saying and trust.
He has to understand it.
He has to rationalize it.
He has to figure it out.
But at the end of the day, what's Nicodemus's real problem?
It's not that he's just kind of a dummy
and can't figure out what Jesus is saying.
It's that these things are spiritually understood
and not humanly understood, and so he's not saved.
He doesn't have faith.
That's the problem.
Why does he not have faith?
Because he doesn't want to believe in Jesus
for whatever reason.
He's not willing to put his faith and trust in Christ.
Now, Jesus goes on to say this in verse 11,
"'Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
"'We speak that we do know.'"
You know, so we say what we know, he's saying.
"'We speak that we do know and testify that we have seen,
"'and ye receive not our witness.'"
Referring to the rulers of the Jews in general, right?
"'If I have told you earthly things and you believe not,
"'how shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly things?'"
And so, again, Jesus is hitting the nail on the head
of what Nicodemus's problem is.
His problem is that he doesn't believe the word of God.
That's why he's not saved.
That's why he doesn't get it.
Verse 13, "'And no man hath ascended up to heaven,
"'but he that came down from heaven,
"'even the Son of Man, which is in heaven.'"
Of course, this is a paradoxical statement.
How can the Son of Man be in heaven
while Jesus is sitting here and talking to Nicodemus, right?
But obviously, God transcends space and time.
That's why that is possible.
Now, here's a question that we're gonna look at in a moment
as we read this text.
When does Jesus stop talking,
and when does the narrator start talking?
Because at some point in this passage,
Jesus is gonna be done talking to Nicodemus,
and then the narrator, the author, John,
is gonna jump in and give his commentary
on what's going on here.
And different people disagree on, you know,
where Jesus stops talking.
Now, some people have a Bible
that's called the red letter edition.
And in the red letter edition,
the words of Christ are in red, supposedly,
but that's just an interpretation.
That's just some dude just decided,
well, I think Jesus is talking in this verse,
and I think he's not talking in this verse.
You are just as qualified as that dude
to make that decision.
So I wouldn't just take the red letters as authoritative.
Rather, I would, and you know what?
I wish that no one had even invented the red letter edition.
There, I said it.
I think it's a dumb invention.
And here's why I think it's a dumb invention.
Number one, they often get the red lettering wrong.
Number two, I feel like the problem
with the red letter edition is that some people
have this attitude that somehow the words in red
are more important or more authoritative,
like, well, this is what Jesus actually said.
Well, let me tell you something, my friend.
The whole Bible is God's word,
not just the part that Jesus said.
Whatever Paul said in his epistles
is just as authoritative as what Jesus said.
It's either the word of God or it isn't.
We don't rank God's word like,
well, the Torah, that's really God's word.
And then, you know, Joshua and Judges is,
yeah, still, you know, pretty strong.
And then we get to Malachi and it's like,
you know, we're starting to fade.
It's not like, well, the red letters, man.
That's where it's at.
Folks, the Bible is the Bible.
The word of God is the word of God.
And also, again, just because something's in red
doesn't mean Jesus said it.
Now, typically the red letter edition
will have everything up to verse 21 in red.
That's what they do, but I totally disagree with that.
And I'm gonna show you where I think Jesus stops talking
and where the narrator picks up that would make more sense.
Now, some people will try to say
that the narrator is already talking in verse 13,
which is why it says that the Son of Man is in heaven.
Here's why they're wrong.
Look at verse 14.
It says, and as Moses lifted up
the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
Notice that is still future.
So if John were writing this as the narrator,
he wouldn't be talking about Christ being crucified
in the future tense because when John's writing
the Gospel of John, that had already happened.
But if Jesus is sitting and talking to Nicodemus
and he tells Nicodemus the Son of Man must be lifted up,
he's predicting his crucifixion that's still coming.
That makes sense.
Does everybody understand?
It would make zero sense for this to be the narrator
in verse 14.
It makes 100% sense for Christ to say
that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
Why must he be lifted up?
So that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish but have eternal life.
Now, that is all spoken to Nicodemus, okay?
So Nicodemus is told all of these things
because notice the connection between all these things.
In verse 11, he's clearly answering Nicodemus still
because Nicodemus says in verse nine,
how could these things be?
Verse 10, art thou master of Israel?
No, it's not these things.
Verse 11, ye receive not our witness, right?
That's still Jesus talking to Nicodemus
at the end of verse 11.
If I've told you earthly things,
he's still clearly talking to Nicodemus, right?
Verse 13 starts with and,
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.
It's all kind of one thought.
You see how that's all flowing as one thought?
All flowing, flowing, flowing until verse 15.
I believe that verse 16 is where the narrator begins to speak
and here's why.
Because it explains the repetition of verses 15 and 16.
Because think about it.
If Jesus says to Nicodemus,
the Son of Man must be lifted up
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have eternal life,
this is a perfect place for the narrator
to jump in and explain why.
Because for means what?
Because.
So the Son of Man's gotta be lifted up
so that whoever believes in him, right?
And then it's like because God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten Son
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life.
Doesn't it seem a little bit redundant
that the second half of verse 16 is identical to verse 15?
Why would he just repeat that again?
That whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have eternal life.
That whosoever believeth in him.
Well, it makes sense because it's connecting
what the narrator is saying with what Jesus said, okay?
And that's why when you read this part here
from verses 16 through 21,
if you've read the Bible a lot
and you kind of know John's style in the Gospel of John
or in the books of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John,
you'll see that this sounds more like John
than Jesus talking from verse 16 onward.
And it explains why you have that kind of repeat
because it's a connector.
Everything flows up to that point.
And then all of a sudden you kind of have
this jarring repetition because of the fact
that we're switching from Jesus talking to Nicodemus,
he's for sure talking to Nicodemus all the way up to 15
because he's talking about his crucifixion
as a future event.
But then 16 and onward, we're talking about,
it's John talking, because if you try to picture Jesus
saying all this stuff to Nicodemus,
some of it feels a little off.
It feels more like this is John
saying this to the reader later on.
I hope that all makes sense to you.
Now notice it says in verse 14,
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
He's prophesying the fact that he's actually going
to be lifted up from the earth as his form of execution.
He's gonna be crucified.
He's gonna die on the cross.
And when Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
that was a picture of Jesus on the cross.
Now, why would a serpent on a pole
picture Jesus Christ being crucified?
You know, because usually a serpent represents who?
The devil, right?
So we think of a serpent not as representing Jesus.
Serpent represents the devil, right?
The old serpent, which is the devil and Satan,
which deceive it the whole world.
But yet, when there was that plague
amongst the children of Israel
and the fiery serpents are biting them,
in order to be healed, they had to make a brazen serpent,
which is also usually an act
that would be prohibited by idolatry,
making a molten image of a beast.
And then, you know, lifting that up somehow.
I mean, you think this would be the opposite
of what God would normally want them to do.
But they lift up this brazen serpent
and whoever looks upon the serpent is healed.
All they have to do is just look at it.
They just look at it and they're healed.
And this is the inspiration,
along with some verses from Isaiah,
for the popular song, Look and Live, right?
Look and live, my brother, live.
Why?
Because in the Old Testament,
in order to be healed from their serpent bites,
they just had to look at the brazen serpent
that was lifted up.
And by the way, this is a powerful truth here
about the fact that our salvation is not by works.
They didn't have to do any work to be healed.
They just have to look at it, right?
All we have to do to be saved
is just to look to Jesus in faith
and trust Jesus Christ as our savior.
That's it.
It's something that just takes place in the heart
and just in our mouth.
It's not that we have to go out and do a bunch of work
or achieve something for God.
And so it says,
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the son of man be lifted up.
And the reason why it was a serpent
is because the Bible says of Jesus,
when he was on the cross,
he who knew no sin became sin for us.
He became sin for us,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
So when Christ is on that cross,
all of the sins of the whole world,
every sin that I've ever done,
it was as if Jesus had done it
and he took upon him the sins of the world.
And so he's now represented by that serpent on the pole
because he's like the epitome of sinfulness,
like the brazen serpent would be a great picture of.
He's the epitome because he's taken upon himself
all the sins of mankind.
He who knew no sin became sin for us.
He his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree.
And so as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the son of man be lifted up, future tense,
so that whosoever believes in him,
not whosoever repents of all their sins
and cleans up their life,
joins the church, gets baptized,
lives a good life, stops sinning.
No, no, no, it's whosoever believeth in him,
should not perish but have eternal life.
Then the narrator jumps in and explains,
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.
For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world
but that the world through him might be saved.
He that believeth on him is not condemned,
but he that believeth not is condemned already
because he hath not believed in the name
of the only begotten son of God.
And again, we just feel like we're hearing
from the narrator in these verses
and there's no you and you guys
and like he did with Nicodemus.
So the Bible says, God sent not his son to the world
to condemn the world,
but that the world through him might be saved.
It's funny when people will like to quote verse 17
in isolation and say like,
hey man, we gotta stop preaching
all this negative preaching, man,
because Christ didn't come to condemn the world, man.
But they forgot the next verse.
Yeah, because everybody's already condemned.
You know what I mean?
It's like Christ didn't come to condemn the world
because they're already condemned.
Why?
Because he that believeth on him is not condemned,
verse 18, but he that believeth not is condemned already.
They're condemned already.
They're already condemned.
So it's not like, well, they were doing okay,
then Jesus preached to them, now they're condemned.
They were already condemned before Jesus even got there.
And by the way, this also speaks to this idea of,
oh, well, you know, people in other countries
who haven't heard the gospel,
they're gonna get a free pass.
Nope, condemned already before Jesus even gets there,
before the Bible even gets there,
before the missionary even gets there,
they're condemned already.
Okay, and by the way, there is not a country on this earth
where people don't know who Jesus is.
People can try to lie to you and tell you.
I mean, I have people try to tell me
the people in India don't know who Jesus is.
I can't even count.
I've had multiple people bring up India.
Such a foolish example.
And here's why it's so foolish, because first of all,
India is filled with literally
hundreds of millions of Muslims.
Now, Muslims aren't saved
because they don't believe Jesus is the son of God.
But do Muslims know who Jesus is?
Yeah, because Jesus is one of the most important prophets
in Islam.
Of course, they get everything wrong.
They don't believe he's the son of God.
They believe wrong things about Jesus.
But all throughout the Quran,
it's a reaction to Christianity.
It's attacking Christianity, it's criticizing Christianity,
or sometimes trying to sound positive about Christianity.
But the point is, every single Muslim on this planet
knows who Jesus is or they're not a Muslim.
If you ask a Muslim, hey, do you believe in Jesus?
This is what they'll say.
Of course I believe in Jesus.
I cannot be Muslim without believing in Jesus, right?
That's what they say verbatim.
I've had a thousand Muslims say that to me.
Okay, now, but if you ask them,
do you believe Jesus is the son of God?
They're gonna say no, and that's why they're not saved.
But are you gonna tell me that in a country
where a massive percentage of the population is Muslim,
they've never heard of Jesus,
they don't know who Jesus is, right?
I mean, obviously, there are also
millions and millions of Christians in India as well, okay?
Of course, millions of Christians,
hundreds of millions of Muslims in India.
But not only that, they'll say,
well, you're talking about Indians who are going to school
and they're going to college or they're in cities.
What about the ones who are the forest-dwelling people?
And here's what you'll find.
The forest-dwelling people of India, the Adivasis,
are the number one most Christian group amongst Indians.
They're the ones that missionaries
have had the most success converting to Christ.
And so probably most saved people in India are Adivasis.
And so to sit there and say like,
oh, people in India don't know who Christ is,
or oh, these people over here, yeah, they do.
They actually do.
Oh, some guy in Africa, the proverbial guy in Africa.
Folks, there have been more missionaries in Africa
than any other continent in the world.
How many?
Thousands and thousands, probably millions
of missionaries to Africa.
You gonna tell me that people in Africa
don't know who Jesus is?
It's absurd, my friend.
So it doesn't matter whether we're talking
about the Muslim world.
We could go to Southeast Asia.
People are gonna know who Jesus is.
They are without excuse, my friend.
And you know what?
Obviously, people don't know enough about Jesus.
They don't know about Jesus like they should,
so let's go tell them about it.
And not just sit here and say,
well, I think they're gonna get a pass.
Really, because what chapter and verse is that?
Nobody gets a pass.
God commandeth all men everywhere to repent.
Every single person in this world,
according to Romans 1, is without excuse.
And so here we see that the world is condemned already.
Christ didn't come to condemn the world.
He came to save the world
because the world's condemned already.
Now, there's another key point here in verse 18.
It says, he that believeth on him is not condemned,
but he that believeth not is condemned already
because he hath not believed
in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Notice that the person who doesn't believe in Jesus
is the same person who has not believed
in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Do you see that?
He that believeth not, he has not believed
in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Now, what is the difference between he believes not
and he has not believed?
What is the difference between these two things?
And I'm not trying to give you
some kind of English grammar lesson up here,
but even if you don't know the grammar
and like Daniel astutely pointed out,
the tense is the difference,
but even if you don't know the lingo,
you intuitively know that there's a difference
between I believe in Christ and I have believed in Christ.
Now, how about this?
I go to church.
That means I go to church currently.
If I said, I go to church, well, I went 10 years ago.
That's not compatible.
If I said, I go to church,
that means that now that's where I'm at right now.
I go to church as a person right now.
Do you go to church?
Right?
That means it's something that you do on a regular basis.
Everybody understand?
Now, if someone were going to church right now,
they'd say, I'm going to church.
They wouldn't say, I go to church.
You know, unless they were talking really fancy,
like, I go to church, sir.
You know, you'd say like, I'm going to church.
If you're doing it right now, it's like,
I'm going to church.
Like I'm in that process right now.
But if you just said, I go to church,
it's like an ongoing thing.
Does that make sense?
In general, I go to church.
Like, hey, I'm not going today because I'm sick,
but in general, I go to church.
If I said, I do go to church,
then I'm contradicting somebody
who tried to claim I don't go.
No, I do go to church, buddy.
Or I'm contradicting something I'm about to say.
Well, I do go to church,
but it's not the church that you want me to go to
or something like that.
So even if we don't know all the grammar
and can't give fancy names to all these things,
we use these things every day correctly.
Now, what if somebody said, I have gone to church?
Does that mean they go to church right now necessarily?
Not necessarily, because that's a different idea.
The idea of I have gone to church
means I've gone to church at some point.
I have not gone to church.
I'm talking about over some period of time.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
Now this is, and you say, well, pastor Anderson,
you're dwelling on this verse too much.
This is important, and I think it's worth stopping
and smelling the roses here for a second,
because this is important.
He that believeth on him is not condemned.
Okay, so the person who believes on Jesus isn't condemned.
So today, right, February 4th,
I believe on Jesus, I'm saved.
I'm not condemned.
I have everlasting life.
I have eternal life.
I shall never perish.
No man is able to pluck me out of God's hand.
Nothing can separate me from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus, my Lord.
I have been passed from death unto life.
I shall not come into condemnation.
I am saved.
I have eternal life.
It will never end.
I can never lose my salvationers.
I'm just saved.
I believe on him, I'm not condemned.
But he that believeth not.
What are we talking about right now?
We're talking about someone who believes not.
If I said he believes not,
that means right now, present tense,
he doesn't believe in Jesus.
This guy today, sorry, I have to check again.
February 4th doesn't believe in Jesus.
On February 4th, he believes not.
He's condemned.
Why is he condemned?
Why is the guy who doesn't believe in Jesus
on February 4th, 2024, why is that guy condemned?
I'll tell you why.
Because he has not believed
in the name of the only begotten son of God.
Here's why this is so important.
It's not that he believed six months ago.
It's not that he believed a year ago.
It's not that he believed five years ago.
He didn't believe 10 years ago
and he doesn't believe it anymore.
Nope, he who believes not is condemned
because he has not believed.
Meaning that the person who doesn't believe in Jesus today
has never believed in Jesus.
Okay, so don't get this idea of,
oh, I used to be a Christian, I used to believe.
No, you never were.
You never were.
Anybody who doesn't believe in Christ now
never believed in him in the past either
because once you believe in Christ,
you are saved, you are eternally indwelled
by the Holy Spirit and you don't just turn around
and stop believing in Jesus.
Now, of course, you could have doubts.
We've all had doubts, I've had doubts.
You're not human if you've never had doubts.
Doubting is part of the human condition.
Hey, the fruit of the Spirit is faith.
A work of the flesh then would be,
if you're walking in the flesh, you could be doubtful.
So therefore, those who have believed on Christ
are eternally saved.
The people who don't believe in Jesus,
it's because they never have.
That's why the Bible says they went out from us,
but they were not of us.
For if they had been of us,
they would no doubt have continued with us,
but they went out, they might have been manifested
they were not all of us.
Now we're basically just seeing the fact
that they're not all of us,
but they were never of us all along.
It's sort of like when you have that friend
that stabs you in the back
and it turns out they were never your friend at all.
I've often said to people,
I've never had, I've often said to people,
none of my friends have ever turned on me.
I've been really lucky as a pastor
because none of my friends have ever turned on me.
And people are like, what about this guy?
That guy wasn't my friend.
You know, why?
Because here's the, it's not like,
oh, this is so tragic that my friend is turning on me.
It's more like, oh, wow, I just found out
what was in this guy's heart all along.
It's not like some nude,
it'd be like if I went to the doctor
and got diagnosed with cancer,
it's not like I got cancer today.
You already had cancer last week.
You had cancer three months ago.
You had cancer six months ago.
It's just today you found out that you had cancer.
And so when somebody leaves and look,
and I'm not talking about leaving a particular church,
I'm talking about leaving the faith, right?
If somebody is like, hey, I'm Mormon now,
I'm a Roman Catholic now, I'm Buddhist now.
I mean, look, I literally grew up with kids
in my church and Christian school that are Buddhist now.
Okay, what is that telling me?
Does that mean that,
well, they used to be Christian, now they're Buddhist.
It tells me that even back when they were
thought to be a Christian,
in their heart, they were not saved.
They did not believe on Jesus,
because if they had actually believed in Jesus,
they'd still be a Christian right now.
And again, obviously it's possible for saved people
to go out and live a sinful life,
get out of church, switch churches, do all kinds of stuff.
But if somebody is just like,
I don't believe in Jesus anymore,
that sentence does not compute.
Because you were a fake Christian in the beginning.
And then typically when you talk to these people,
you used to be a Christian,
back when they were a so-called Christian,
guess what they thought you had to do to go to heaven?
Works.
So they're like, oh, I'm a Christian.
And they're in a works-based Christianity.
And then, yeah, that's why they were never saved,
because they had never actually put their trust in Jesus.
They were never actually born again.
And so verse 18 is key.
It's, and again, it's not the only verse that teaches this.
I just rattled off 20 other verses,
but it's a good one though.
It's a powerful verse.
And then it says in verse 19,
and this is the condemnation,
and I'm not gonna finish the whole chapter,
so don't get scared or anything like that if you, you know.
This is the condemnation that light is coming to the world,
and men loved darkness rather than light,
because their deeds were evil.
See, if Jesus were still speaking to Nicodemus,
you know what he'd probably say?
Like, this is the condemnation
that light is coming to the world,
and you, you loved darkness.
Like you, because remember,
when he was talking to Nicodemus,
he's saying, you receive not our witness.
And he's using that kind of language,
whereas now the narrator is giving us generalities,
and saying, this is the condemnation
that light is coming to the world,
and men loved darkness rather than light,
because their deeds were evil.
So people who are wicked in their actions,
in their deeds, in their works,
they love darkness.
They don't love light.
Now, here's what's interesting about salvation.
Obviously, we know that we don't have
to do any works to be saved.
Not only that, we don't have to clean up
our lives to be saved.
We don't have to stop sinning,
or else we'd all be going to hell,
because there's not a person in this room
who has stopped sinning.
Now, hopefully we've stopped a lot of sins.
Hopefully we've stopped the big ones,
or most of them, but there's nobody here
who could just say, you know what,
my New Year's resolution was don't sin,
and it's February 4th, and I still haven't sinned.
There's no way.
And if so, you're gonna screw it up
by the end of the day.
No, there's no way you, you're not even,
there's no way that anybody's even going 35 days
without sinning.
That's bogus, that's nonsense.
You know, if we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
And so, no, you do not have to clean up your life
or turn from your sins in order to be saved.
You just have to put your faith and trust
in Jesus to be saved.
Salvation is by faith, it's not of works,
and turning from your evil way is works,
according to Jonah 3.10.
Jonah 3.10 says, God saw their works, comma,
that they turned from their evil way.
That's, and common sense should tell you
that turning from your sins is a lot of work,
and that it's kind of a work in progress
as you continually turn from your sins.
But, here's what's funny about that,
is that most people out there in the world
that aren't saved, you know what they think?
They think you have to turn from your sins to be saved.
I mean, if we were to walk down the street
and just ask people, hey, do you think
that you have to clean up your life at all
or turn from your sins in order to go to heaven,
or do you think that it's nothing to do
with the way you live?
You and I both know the vast majority of people
would say, yeah, you gotta clean up your life.
Well, guess what, we go door to door every week,
and we hear that every week from people.
We've already tested this.
And we took a pretty big sample, talked to literally,
our church alone has talked to millions of people
in this area alone, let alone all the mission strips
and everything else, let alone the internet.
And so, people think that, so you'll hear people
say things like this, well, I don't wanna get saved
because I'm not ready to give up X, Y, and Z sin in my life.
Have you ever had somebody tell you, so my wild oats,
and so, I'm gonna do that later.
The person who says this doesn't understand the gospel.
They don't get it.
This is like Constantine the Great, who basically,
in many ways, founded the Roman Catholic Church,
but Constantine was told by his phony, bogus Catholic
preachers, they told him that baptism's gonna wash away
all his sins, but then after that, he's gotta do
the right things and keep renewing it and whatever,
so he basically just decided, well, I'm not gonna
get baptized until the very end of my life then.
That way, because if baptism really just washes
the slate clean, I don't wanna use that.
It's like in a video game, you get a really powerful item
and you're like, I'm gonna hang onto this for the big boss.
I don't wanna blow this on something small.
So basically, he's got that item that's gonna just
bring his HP to max, his spiritual XP or HP or whatever.
It's gonna max him out, so he's hanging onto that item.
And to them, this is a true story.
So Constantine, the Emperor Constantine,
he waited until he's like on his death bed.
Then he got baptized at the very end,
because he thought that was gonna wash away his sins.
And then, basically, after he got baptized,
he lived for another week and he just like,
he wore all white, all white, all white,
he wore all white and just was super careful
not to sin at all during that week,
because it's just like, I can't screw this up,
because I don't, you know.
And he lived roastingly ever after,
because he's burning in hell right now.
Because that's not salvation.
He could have just believed on the Lord Jesus Christ
at any time and then, basically,
it would be a different kind of video game item
where his XP just stays at the max.
You see what I'm saying?
Because like, once you believe on Christ,
you're saved forever.
All your sins are forgiven.
Now, God will punish you on this earth if you disobey him,
but when it comes to heaven and hell,
it's based on faith in Christ.
But most people think that you have to turn away
from your sins.
So some people have this attitude of,
well, I'm not ready or whatever.
When in reality, they need to just get saved today.
And then once the Holy Spirit moves in,
you know, hopefully, the transformative power
of the Holy Spirit and the word of God
and discipleship are gonna kick in
and this person will get sin out of their life
that they never thought they could.
But you gotta get saved to even get to first base
before we even start talking about getting the sin
out of your life.
Let's get you saved and start from there.
Because no matter what, and plus,
you don't, plus, you can't wait till your deathbed
because you might die suddenly.
You know, how do you know when it's gonna happen?
You don't.
So here's another phenomenon, though,
is that people who are wicked people,
they, it's not that they don't wanna give up their sins.
It's that they don't even wanna be told
that their sins are wrong,
even if they don't have to give them up.
They don't even wanna be told no.
They don't even wanna be criticized.
They don't even wanna be exposed.
They wanna think, I'm good, I'm righteous.
And look, this is where the Jews were at.
The Pharisees, Nicodemus and his ilk.
Why did Nicodemus not wanna get saved?
Because Nicodemus and them,
they thought that they were super holy, super spiritual.
Jesus is the light.
He's shining the light on some of their garbage.
And then they go running away like cockroaches
back to darkness.
Because they love darkness rather than light
because their deeds were evil.
So let's say you have a really rotten, sinful person.
This person who's really truly a rotten, sinful person
is unlikely to get saved.
They're unlikely to get saved because people who do evil,
people who hurt other people, you know, harmful people,
they hate the light.
It's hard to get saved if you hate God, if you hate Jesus,
if you hate the gospel, if you hate the Bible,
you're pretty far from getting saved, aren't you?
So super sinful people are therefore unlikely to get saved.
Whereas people that do truth, they come to the light.
People who have a sincere heart are likely to get saved
because they come to the light, they gravitate to the light,
they love the light more than they love the darkness.
And that's what, let's read this.
It says, this is the condemnation
that light has come into the world
and men love darkness rather than light
because their deeds were evil.
For everyone that doeth evil, hateth the light,
neither cometh to the light, why?
Lest his deeds should be reproofed.
They don't even want somebody to tell them,
hey buddy, that's a sin.
See, for me and you, we know that some of the stuff
that we do is sin and we just admit it
and here's what we say, well, we're not perfect, right?
Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven.
And so if somebody pointed out some sin in our life,
we'd just be like, that's not true, I never sinned.
We'd be like, well, yeah, yeah, I shouldn't have done that.
Yeah, I was wrong or yeah,
that's something that I need to work on.
Yeah, that's a sin in my life.
Yeah, we just admit it and say like, yeah, I'm a sinner.
What does the Bible say?
Confess your faults one to another.
We would just acknowledge and say,
hey, yeah, that's a sin in my life.
We wouldn't just say like, how dare you tell me
that stealing's a sin or something.
We just say, yeah, I'm sorry or whatever.
But man, these people who do evil, they hate the light,
they don't want their deeds getting reproofed.
They don't even want somebody telling them,
you need to fix that, you need to work on that,
you need to straighten that out.
But he that doeth truth cometh to the light
that his deeds may be made manifest
that they're wrought in God.
And so he's glad to have the light shined
so that his good works can be exposed
and also so that he can clean up his life
because he loves light and he hates darkness.
So this is just a generality saying that people
who are rotten people are typically
not gonna end up getting saved.
And then a lot of nice people
are gonna end up getting saved
because they gravitate to the light.
But at the end of the day, going to heaven's
got nothing to do with being nice
and going to hell's got nothing to do with being super evil
because at the end of the day,
it's just, do you believe in Jesus?
And so even the most rotten sinner could be saved
if they would simply come to the light and be saved.
There's nothing stopping them except their own attitude
that says, I don't wanna be reproofed.
But look, we've all had the experience
if we've spent a lot of time out there evangelizing
and soul winning where we have won some super sinful people
to the Lord and we know Jesus won prostitutes to the Lord
and the tax collectors and some of the dregs of society.
Why?
Because these people, although they've done a lot of sin
in their life, they at least were willing
to let the light shine on it and say, okay, yeah, I'm guilty.
And guess what?
To be saved, you gotta admit that you're guilty.
You gotta admit you're a sinner and you gotta fully trust
what Christ has done for you on the cross.
And so this first part of John chapter three
is a powerful passage on salvation, the new birth,
and what it takes to go to heaven.
Why are some people saved?
Why are some people not saved?
It has to do with their willingness to submit
to the word of God, their willingness to be humble,
their willingness to be exposed,
their willingness to come to the light.
And it's our job today to get out and shine that light
as much as we possibly can and preach the gospel
to every single creature to get as many people saved
as we can.
Why?
Because God so loved the world.
And whoever believes in him is gonna be saved.
And so we wanna get out there and preach the word of God,
get as many people saved as possible.
Let's borrow another word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for this powerful passage,
Lord, and we pray that you'd bless us
as we go our separate ways now
and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen.
Amen, go in your Psalm books to hymn number 41.
Hymn number 41, In the Sweet By and By.
Hymn number 41.
["In the Sweet By and By"]
41 begins, there is a land that is fair in the name.
And by faith, we can see it afar.
Hymn number 41, sing it out.
There's a land that is fair in the name.
And by faith, we can see it afar.
For the Father is over the way
to prepare us a dwelling place there.
In the sweet by and by,
we shall be on a beautiful shore.
In the sweet by and by,
we shall be on that beautiful shore.
We shall sing on that beautiful shore.
Love the glorious songs of the blessed,
and our spiritual sorrow no more.
Not a sign for the blessing of friends.
In the sweet by and by,
we shall be on that beautiful shore.
In the sweet by and by,
we shall be on that beautiful shore.
To our bountiful Father above,
we will offer our tribute of praise
for the glorious gift of His love,
and the blessings that hallow our days.
In the sweet by and by,
we shall be on that beautiful shore.
In the sweet by and by,
we shall be on that beautiful shore.
Amen. That's the thing that's pointing you off today.
That's the thing that's pointing you off today.