John chapter 3 familiar portion of God's Word John chapter 3 and we'll read from the opening verse John chapter 3 verse 1 there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus a ruler of the Jews and 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. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter in the second time into his mother's womb and be born? 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, he must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whether it goeth. So is every one that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know. and testify that we have seen, ye receive not our witness. If I told you earthly things, ye believe not. How shall ye believe if I tell you heavenly things? No man hath ascended up to the heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man, which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life. Amen. What a tremendous verse to finish on. What a tremendous promise held out to us in the gospel that we can have eternal life and that we shall never perish. Let's seek the Lord in prayer together. Our loving Father, The Word of God is before us open. We thank Thee for the faithful translation of Thy Word. We thank Thee for men like Tyndale. We thank Thee for men like Whitcliffe. Individuals, O God, that saw to it that we would find eventually the Word of God in our own mother tongue. And here we are before Thy Word, preacher and congregation. Preacher, no different. no different than the congregation. I'm as much under thy word, Lord, as the one within the pew. Oh God, we are submissive to thy word today. Help us, open our understanding, give us understanding. Here we see, dear God, in this very event, a very educated man, highly educated in the things of the Jewish religion. and yet would have to say, how can these things be? Could not understand it, could not grasp it. And we recognize that the carnal mind is at enmity with God, and that the carnal man receiveth not the things of God, for they are spiritually discerned. Oh God, give us spiritual discernment. Help us, oh God, we pray. Help me, I pray. Fill me with iceberg. and grant, O God, the workings of the Holy Spirit, even in this house today, for we offer prayer in and through our Savior's precious name. Amen and amen. Well, last Lord's Day, we came to an understanding, I trust we did at least, we came to an understanding of what regeneration is. And we thought about it theologically and we thought about it scripturally. Theologically, we saw that regeneration is a divine act of God whereby the sinner is given new life. by God. Scripturally, we saw that regeneration is a recreation, it is a rebirth, it is a quickening, the quickening by the Spirit whereby the sinner is begotten of God and comes to bear the image of the begetter within their life. In other words, they become like Jesus Christ. They are conformed to his image as a result of the divine life, the divine nature implanted into the heart of the child of God. Well, today we want to continue our study in this great doctrine of regeneration as we think about the application of redemption by the Holy Spirit to the sinner. Having defined what regeneration is, today we want to think about a number of the details around this great doctrine of regeneration. Remember what I said last week? There are many heresies with respect to this particular doctrine, and that's why we must study it. I was very interested. I was speaking to my brother-in-law just this week concerning something, and he was telling me what he was preaching on in his congregation there in Coleraine. And he said that he was preaching upon decisional Well, I was preaching on that. Just wonderful how God bringing to our minds this very thought, causing our congregations to understand that it's more than just simply saying a prayer. Now that's involved. or whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But it's not just a tick box exercise. And then at the end of the thing, the minister saying that a person has been saved or being regenerated. This is something that is deep. This is something that is mysterious that we're thinking about. And this is something that is certainly needed within the body of Jesus Christ, that every individual understands and is aware that they have been regenerated by the Spirit of God. I trust that you have searched your heart this week. I trust that you've searched the soul this week by the help of the Spirit and asked the question, have I been genuinely regenerated? by the Spirit of God. So we want to look at this doctrine. Now the truths that we'll present today, that I'll present today in this message, I believe that I've mentioned a number of them, maybe all of them, but it does no harm, I believe, to repeat certain truths so that they become fixed in our minds and in our hearts. And we'll be unshaken with respect to this doctrine. This doctrine of regeneration. Now the first detail as we look at the doctrine of regeneration I want to think upon is that regeneration is solely a work of God. It is solely a work of God. God is active in regeneration, but man is entirely passive. Man does not cooperate with respect to the regeneration. of the well and of the heart and of the soul. Man has no part to play in their regeneration. Regeneration is entirely exclusively a work of God because of what it accomplishes. You see, what does it accomplish? Well, as I've said in the past, the mind is renovated. the affections are elevated, the will emancipated from the bondage of sin. Now whenever you think about that and that which regeneration does, then you can understand that only such could ever be accomplished by the omnipotent power of God. You see, when we come to understand regeneration theologically and scripturally, as we did last week, setting the basis for this week's study, then we will have absolutely no problem in attributing this work entirely to God. The Christian will be able to gladly say, as Jonah did in Jonah 2 verse 9, that salvation is off the Lord. We fully understand it, as we have understood what regeneration is and what regeneration does. This change of heart and soul and will, we come to understand that it is a work of God. Now since regeneration, is an act whereby the spiritually dead sinner is given new life. We understand that no sinner can originate spiritual life within. That is an utter impossibility. Now the sinner can receive life, The sinner can use the life given to them, but the sinner cannot create life. It is like saying that a dead person can assist in their own resurrection. That's a fallacy. When you're dead, you're dead. And certainly you have no ability to raise yourself from that state of physical deadness. And so we understand that it's only God. Now the Arminian. they would tell us that men do play a part, that man is cooperating with the Holy Spirit in regeneration. But I remind you again that the will of the sinner, a will that is wholly inclined towards sin, cannot cooperate, cannot contribute to the work of regeneration. Because that would be like God moving in one direction and the sinner moving in the complete opposite direction. because their will is inclined to sin and to unrighteousness. God's will is for a man to be brought to holiness and to righteousness, and so we would have two parties diametrically opposed, God opposing man and man opposing God. And so, therefore, man has no part to play. Now, man's non-cooperation and regeneration is well illustrated for us in the case of Lazarus. the friend of the Lord Jesus Christ in John chapter 11. This will maybe help you understand. There he is, lying in the tomb, three days dead. He's stinking. That's what the sisters say. He's stinking, or the Jews say he's stinking. And there he is, lying in the grave. Holy death, no life within him, not a spark of life. The seeds of corruption are now bearing fruit in the decaying of the body. It's experiencing the decaying process that comes and will come to us all after death. And there he's lying in the grave, surrounded by the stink of death's corruption. Can he do anything for himself? Can he bring himself out of that state? Of course he cannot. If he could have, he would have. If Mary could have done something, if Martha could have done something, if the Jews could have done something, I'm sure they would have. He could not will himself to life. He could not excite himself to life. He could not stir up life within himself. He could not self-motivate himself to life. He was wholly incapable of bringing himself out of that death. What was required? Divine intervention. Christ had to come. The Son of God, the resurrection and the life had to speak. Lazarus, come forth. And at that divine command, he willingly and obediently came forth out of his death and out of the grave because God had intervened. And so when any sinner comes to saving faith in Jesus Christ, such must be understood as a sovereign and gracious work of God. No credit, no credit can be attributed to the sinner. or even to the Christian used by God to bring that person to the knowledge of Christ. Listen, my friend, there's no room, no room for the little Jack Horner attitude. What's the little Jack Horner attitude? Little Jack Horner sat in a corner eating a... I can't even remember it all, but he says at the end, what a good boy am I. What a good boy am I. Can any sinner say that? When they're saved by God's grace? that they played some part in it. What a good boy am I, I assisted God in this salvation. No, none of us can have that attitude that little Jack Horner had. None of us can say, what a good boy am I. Instead, we come to understand that the work of God is an exclusive work in regeneration. And as we come to understand that, brethren and sisters, do you know what that should create within our souls? Humility. and awe of God. that God has literally come to the grave of my sin and exhumed me out of that grave and brought me to new life in Jesus Christ. It should cause us to bow in humility and ascribe all glory to God because we understand from first to last that it's all of grace, it's all of love, it's all of mercy, and it's all with regard to the sovereignty of God in it all. It is because of grace, God's grace, God's grace and His grace alone, that He has brought me and drawn me to Christ, that He has enlightened my mind, that He has renewed my will, that He has made me willing in the day of His power to answer the call of the gospel and to embrace Christ as He's offered to sinners in the gospel. Charles Hodge, The theologian, understanding that regeneration is solely a work of God, he said, this no believer ever ascribes his regeneration to himself. He does not recognize himself as the author of the work, or his own relative goodness, his greater susceptibility to good impression, or his great readiness of persuasion as the reason why he, rather than others, is the subject of this change. He knows that it is a work of God, and that it is a work of God's free grace. That's why we sang McShane's hymn, When Free Grace Awoke Me. by light from on high. Then legal fears shook me. I trembled to die. No refuge, no safety, and self could I see. Jehovah's sickening became all things to me. This work is exclusively God's. This is God's work. If you want evidence of that, you'll not have to go far in the word of God. Let me give you a number of passages that highlight, that show, that attribute the work of regeneration exclusively to God. We think of the book of Ezekiel again, this time the chapter 36. And let me read a number of verses from verse 25. God is speaking here. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, ye shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statues, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them. It's all of God, a new heart, a new spirit. God does it. God puts such within a man. Romans 9, verse 16, so then, it is not of him that willeth nor him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. 2 Timothy 1, verse 9, who has saved us and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace. which was given us in Christ before the world began. Titus 3 verse 5, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing off regeneration. James 1 verse 18, of his own will begat he us. It was the will of God. His own will, His own purpose, His own plan. He begat us with the word of truth that we should be the kind of first fruits of His creatures. Now let's bring it. Let's try and be simple today. When you were born, did you play any part in your physical birth? Now I speak not only of the birth process, I'm speaking about your conception. Did you play any part? Did you will yourself into life? Was it your desire that you came into existence within your mother's womb? Well, you would understand, of course, you had no part to play. In actual fact, you were totally oblivious to all that was required to bring you as a person into existence, wholly oblivious to it all. And the same, brethren and sisters, is true to your spiritual birth. If you've experienced the new birth, it's not because you initiated it, it was because a divine act of God was wrought upon you and brought you to life. John Murray, he affirmed the divine initiative in the new birth when he wrote, for entrance into the kingdom of God, we are wholly dependent upon the action of the Holy Spirit, an action which is compared to that on the part of our parents by which we were born into the world. We are as dependent upon the Holy Spirit as we are upon the action of our parents in connection with our natural birth. We were not begotten by our father because we decided to be. And we were not born of our mother because we decided to be. We were simply begotten and we were born. We did not decide to be born. If this privilege is ours, it is because the Holy Spirit willed it. And here all rests upon the Holy Spirit's decision and action. He begets or He bears when and where He pleases. This is God sovereignly working. God sovereignly working. Now that goes against the trend of evangelical preaching. It goes against what most people preach today. Most people say, well, you just decide to come to Christ when you want to. That's as foreign to the gospel as anything. You cannot be just born again when you so will it. You can't bring yourself into that state whereby you feel convicted of your sin. And where you're by your trouble, no, the effects you'll call must go out. There must be the troubling of the soul, the regenerating of the heart, the implanting of new life. Now you may be able to make a profession of faith. You might be respected in the church. Everyone may think yourself to be born again. But has there been a day, a moment, God by His Spirit regenerated your heart. Let it be fixed in every mind and heart today that regeneration is a sovereign act of God that He does independently of any action or part of man or by man. Man is entirely passive and contributes nothing to their regeneration. The sinner needs a complete spiritual birth. They need to be washed, They need to be transformed. They need the stony heart to be taken out and a heart of flesh to be given. They need the Spirit of God to be implanted within them if they're ever to enter into the kingdom of God. And that is not something that the sinner can do for themselves, because the flesh always produces the flesh. You see, that which is born of the flesh is flesh. That's what Jesus said. That which is born of the Spirit You see, no person morphs into becoming a Christian. You don't grow into becoming a Christian. Now, you might grow into becoming religious and doing what is expected within the evangelical church, but you don't morph into being a Christian. No, it takes a miracle. It's not the morphing, it's a miracle. A miracle of God's sovereign grace. And, brethren and sisters, that is humbling. If you are a Christian and you know that you've been born again and your heart has been regenerated and there's new desires and new longings after God and after holiness and after righteousness and after God's Word and prayer and all the things that we have within the Word of God, if that is your experience, that's humbling and it should also be the endless basis of your praise. Thank you, Lord. or saving my soul. You see, too often we put it down and we look at salvation, we look at it too simplistically. We don't see the great miracle that it is. And therefore, it isn't the joy and the praise of our hearts if we don't consider it as we ought to. You see, in this work of regeneration, We are to look into the fact that it is God and God alone who works upon the heart. It's solely a work of God. Number two, quickly, quarter two. Second detail, regeneration brings about the illumination of the mind. It's a work of God and it brings about the illumination of the mind. And speaking about his own salvation experience, John Newton, in his famous hymn, Amazing Grace, he put it as simply like this, "'Twas blind, but now I see." "'Twas blind, but now I see." You see, before conversion, before regeneration, he was blind. He was blind to his own state, his own sin. He's blind to the beauty that was in Christ, but after the heart was regenerated, Newton could clearly see on all these matters. You see, in regeneration, the sinner's mind, darkened by sin, is illuminated to the truths of the gospel. Now, do not misunderstand me. It is not that the sinner is ignorant to the truths of the gospel before they are regenerated. No, those truths have been expounded to them through the faithful preaching of God's Word. The preacher has stood up and he has read from the English Bible to you who speak English, the words, ye must be born again. And if I was to ask you today, do you understand what those words mean? Ye, you, that's me, must, this is a necessity. Be born again. I need to be born of the Spirit, born from above. Every individual in this house would understand those words, logistically. Grammatically, you understand those words grammatically. It's not that you're ignorant and you're thinking, what's the words that he's speaking about today? I don't understand. You understand it within your mind. You understand it with respect to language. Of course you do. So it's not that you're ignorant of it. You may give a mental assent to it. You may give, as it were, a mental nod to the truth of the gospel, but the sinner does not see that truth as applying to them. They don't feel the necessity of the new birth. They understand it, they understand the language that is used within the Word of God, the call of the Gospel to be saved, to repent of sin. You understand it all. I understand that, you understand that. But there's something that just doesn't get a hold. It just seems to be that the sinner cannot grab and grasp hold of the truth that this is applying to me. And that's why the sinner comes and goes from the house of God unchanged and unaffected by the word, because their mind is darkened. Their mind is darkened. Their mind has been darkened by sin and therefore they cannot grasp the truth even though it stares them in the face. There's is in black and white, I need to be born again. Here I sit as an unregenerate person. It's before me, I cannot grasp it, I cannot get it, preacher. What you need is for the mind to be illuminated. You need gospel light to shine in. You need the veil to be lifted. And scriptures speak about this. The illuminating of the mind. It's borne out in scripture such as, and you'll know some of these, 2 Corinthians 4, verse 6, for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined into or in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. This is what happens in regeneration. The light has shone into the heart. Ephesians 1, 17 and 18, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of glory may give on to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him the eyes of your understanding being enlightened that ye may know there it is the enlightenment that's followed by knowledge, that ye may come to a place where ye know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of the inheritance in his saints. Ephesians 5 verse 8, for ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light, walk as children of light. Hebrews 10, 32, but called to remembrance the former days in which after ye were illuminated. ye endured a great fight of affliction, 1 Peter 2 verse 9, but ye are chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. When the mind is illuminated by the Spirit of God, the truths of the gospel are no longer a list, longer are just a list of facts in the mind or on a page, but they become an experience of truth that reaches into the heart, that reaches into the very heart. It's as if the lights turned on It's as if the dawn breaks and the sinner for the first time sees the truth of the gospel as it's applying to them. Yes, preacher, I'm the sinner. I'm the rebel. I'm the transgressor. I have broken his law. It's me, preacher, that you're preaching about. And it seems to be that the penny drops and the dawn breaks. Such happens. And the Spirit of God is moving. Could I use The simple, as it were, statement, eureka, it is that spiritual eureka moment when the sinner for the first time comes to appreciate and subsequently then accepts what the gospel states about them and God that indicates that their mind has been illuminated. Eureka, it was, I found it. I found it, that's what it means, I found it. I see it now. I see what I am." And then they're unable to embrace Christ in the gospel. Let me ask you, have you ever had that moment on the journey of life? And it's as if the light has been turned on in the mind and you've come to comprehend your low state and estate before God, that you've been given a true sight of your sin. I tell you, whenever the light is dawned, the light first dawned on my spirit. Is that not what the hymn writer said? It was down at the feet of Jesus. In that hymn, where the light first dawned on my spirit, and my soul was truly blessed. When you get a true sight of your sin, and the mind is illuminated, it'll not be long before you find yourself with a contrite spirit at the feet of Christ, seeking his mercy and pardon for sin. Oh, that the blindfold would be removed and that the light of the gospel would shine in to your heart. Oh, for a moment of divine illumination. Thirdly, regeneration brings about the renewing of the will. The renewing of the will. We are back again to our definition provided by the Westminster Divines in the Shorter Catechism. What is effectual calling? That little statement, the renewing of the will. What does that mean? Well, we need to back up a little first, and we need to understand what the will is. See, the will of man, the human will is that part of man wherein choices are made. It is the seat of the human affection. It is the seat of their affections, their desires, and their choices, the human will. Now, by nature, the human will is inclined towards sin. The human will is set against God by nature. We are born in enmity with God. We're born against His law, His holiness, His righteousness, His truth. A will that is affected by sin has no affinity to spiritual or heavenly things. In actual fact, the tendency, the bent, the disposition, the inclination, whatever word you want to use, is always towards evil. And because its inclination is towards sin, that means that it's inclined away from God. What happens in regeneration? Let me try and explain it in this way. I've got a pen here. There is the inclination of man. As it were, naturally speaking, It is towards sin against God. What happens in regeneration is simply this. It's now towards God and away from sin. The whole inclination has changed. Now, the Arminian teaches that the inclination of man, the disposition of man is in a balanced state, but not so. By nature, we are born inclined to sin and unrighteousness, wholly bent, an inward biasness within us towards sin and to unrighteousness. The will of man is not waiting for our first decision with respect to sin. It's already in, as it were, a negative representation or state with God. But in regeneration, such a radical change takes place. It's so radical. The whole will has changed. The whole disposition, the whole tendency, the whole bent, the whole gradation of man has completely changed. It's altered. So that instead of it being inclined, as I said, towards sin and away from God, there's a new inclination given. Now that well is inclined towards God and away from sin. Regeneration then is the origination of a new inclination within the heart, within the well of the sinner towards God. Inclining him to sin and disinclining him, sorry, to holiness and disinclining him to sin. In other words, whenever you become a Christian, your natural disposition, your will, will be naturally towards God. You will not need the preacher to tell you that you need to come to the prayer meeting. You'll not need that to happen, because your heart will be inclined to that. Speaking to a young man just at the end or a few days after the martyrs' youth rally, and he used to be in the Young Farmers before he trusted in Jesus Christ. The Young Farmers met every other week. Now, the Young Farmers that he attended, thankfully there was no what normally happens in Young Farmers clubs, but anyway, he said the day that he got saved, trusted in Christ, That Wednesday night, he went to the prayer meeting, and that was the end of the Young Farmers Club. Just stopped, because Wednesday night was prayer meeting night. He didn't have to be coerced, he didn't have to be encouraged, he just knew that as a new Christian, with a regenerated heart, that that was his place in the house of God and the place of prayer. And he never went back, because God radically changed him. And so I know that it is the preacher's job and believers and the elders job to encourage people to the house of God. And at times we do get lazy and we do get slothful and there are other pressures that do come on, we understand that. But on the vast majority, we should be in the house of God. That should be the natural desire because the world has changed. And that's why we need to ask ourselves the question, has there been a work of grace? Has there been a work of grace? Honestly, do I desire prayer? Do I desire God's house? Do I desire holiness? Do I desire to live a life apart from worldliness? Is that my natural desires? They're not ours, naturally speaking, but are they now my desires, now being a Christian? Because folks, if they're not, you're either very badly backslidden, Or you've never been regenerated by the Spirit of God. Because there's a whole new inclination. There's a whole new bent. There's a whole new desire, new tendency within the life. You see, that new will, now inclined to God, it now makes new choices. And it now makes new choices that lead to holy actions. Not to unholiness. Not to the world. It doesn't take you into the cinema, or to the theater, or to the nightclub. It doesn't take you to the bar. It doesn't take you to the places of this world. It takes you to the house of God, to the people of God, to the fellowship of the saints. That's what it'll do. So we need to ask, have I been regenerated? Because my will, what is my will? What's the general trend of my life today? The 3rd of March, I think it is. 3rd of March, 2019. What is the general trend of my life? Am I getting more worldly? Or am I desiring more of God and more of holiness? You can only answer that, and I can only answer it for my life. If we learn nothing else, brethren and sisters, let's learn this, that regeneration, it is a mystery. It is a mystery, and it is a miracle. Fourthly and finally, don't get lost. We're coming to the to the end of the message, regeneration is a work of God that occurs in the subconscious life of man. Now, don't get lost. We'll try and explain it very simply. Everyone that is born of the Spirit can point to a time. Some can even point to an hour when they trusted in Jesus Christ. They may not know the date. I'm not saying that, but there was a moment. They can point to a moment that they were converted to Jesus Christ. However, their conversion, the moment that they repented of sin, exercised faith in Christ, because that's what conversion is, that was only a byproduct of what has already happened. Regeneration has already taken place. The new well is now, you see, the Arminian will teach that they repent and they exercise faith, and then they are regenerated. We in Calvinism believe that the person is first of all regenerated, and then there is the exercising of faith and repentance. You see, it puts all the glory on God. And that's what we always want to do in our theology. We always want to hold God high, want to give him his proper and rightful place. Salvation is off the Lord. It's not about me coming and exercising faith and repenting of my sin. And then God is some way obliged to regenerate my heart. That's not what happens. God works mysteriously. It's about a by-product or conversion of us being regenerated. And so no Christian can accurately discern when the divine act of regeneration has taken place upon the heart, because there is no inner sensation that we feel. Folks, we don't get a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling whenever new life is implanted within the soul. We're oblivious to it, but it's already there. God imparts new life. However, that which flows out of regeneration, or conversion, repentance, faith, sanctification, and so on, enters into the conscious part of man. Of course we're aware that we're saved, that we are saved. We have new desires, new longings. We understand that we exercise faith in Christ. It flows in. Yes, obviously it does. But this initial unawareness, for a better word, The part of the person who has been regenerated is alluded to in this passage. We finally got there, John chapter 3. John chapter 3, God uses the image, the Son of God uses the image. Verse 8, the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof. But canst thou tell whence it cometh? Or whether it goeth, so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto them, How can these things be? That's bringing Our thought, remember what we said? A person can logically, logistically, in terms of language, look at he misunderstood what Christ said in the language that he was using. But he just couldn't grasp it. There was a deeper understanding. His mind wasn't illuminated. But God, the Son, uses the work of the wind, the wind. Now we can see the effects of the wind. We can see it, the effects with the eye. We can hear the wind with our ear. We see the wind as it travels through the trees. We can see the clouds moving because of the wind, but we cannot see the wind itself. This movement of air mass from one place to the next, that's what wind is, a shifting of air mass from one to the next. can only be discerned because of the byproducts it produces. And so when we speak of the work of the Spirit within the soul, yes, we see the byproduct, we see conversion, we see faith, we see the change within the life through sanctification, but we cannot discern the actual operations of the Spirit within the soul. It takes place in the deep subconscious part of the individual, and when Exactly that takes place as only known of God. There are two vital lessons, and with this I close. As we think about this detail, the first lesson is this, we are never to judge according to appearance. I've said that this work of God the Spirit happens within the subconscious part of man. Beyond the eye of man, we cannot discern when God regenerates the heart. We see when a person is brought to faith in Christ, that's conversion, but this work of regeneration, the illuminating of the mind, the enlightening of the heart, we do not know exactly when that happens, and so we are never to judge according to appearance. We may look at a person, and we may think that nothing is happening in that person's life with respect to the gospel. They may appear hard. They may appear indifferent. They may appear unresponsive to the gospel. And yet beyond what we can see, God may be regenerating the heart, a work that will lead in subsequent time to their conversion. And so if you're a believer here today, never despair. Seek that God will regenerate the heart of those that you love so dearly. In the words of John 7, verse 24, judge not according to the appearance. Remember, the kingdom of God cometh not with observation. God may be working in this house just now, regenerating someone's heart. That's a great mystery. The second lesson and the last lesson to learn is that those hostile to the gospel can be made sympathetic to the gospel in a moment of time. In a moment of time. The example is Saul of Tarsus. Note him. Traveling to Damascus at breakneck speed. towards the city that he might arrest and imprison the Christian there. His own salvation was most certainly not on his agenda that day. And yet in a moment of time, God regenerates the heart. That man exercises faith in the Lord. Lord, what would thou have me to do? Changes his own will because he's wanting to do his own will. Before that moment of time, now he wants to know God's will. Lord, what would thou have me to do? It all happens in the life of Saul of Tarsus in a moment of time. Once hostile to the gospel, the next moment receptive of the gospel. All because God regenerated his heart. And so that unsaved husband that you left at home today, that wife of yours that has no time for the gospel, That child of yours that resents God so much that they haven't been even across the threshold of a gospel preaching church for years, that family member, that friend that avoids the gospel at all costs, don't be losing heart. Don't be losing hope, child of God. Because God can change the whole inclination of their will. by a single act of His, so that they see the folly of their sin and they flee to Jesus Christ. God does it. It's all of Him. And so I trust that in some way you've learned a little bit more about the miracle, the miracle that regeneration is. And knowing about it, Within our heads, may we see it experimentally in this house and in our homes and in our families. As God is pleased to work in coming days, may we see Him regenerating the heart and bringing a person to that place of repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Has God been speaking to you? Have your ears been opened? Has your eyes been opened? Has your heart been opened? And now you see yourself as lost and undone. Seek the Savior. Seek Him. He's working in your life. Come. For all things are now ready. Come and be saved. And know the miracle of God's salvation. May God bring you to faith in Jesus Christ. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Thank you for listening. For being attentive to the word, that's a blessing. We appreciate it. From the youngest child, and there are infants here today, we thank you. From the oldest individual, we thank you for listening. May God be pleased to work this miracle in your soul. Our loving Father, our gracious God, what a miracle. And Lord, we really but only look at this through a glass darkly. We can only grasp this a little with our finite minds. Lord, maybe we're not even explaining 1% of what really happens in this miracle. but we're understanding as much as the scriptures bring to our attention. Truly, it is a miracle of thy grace that a whole person has changed radically in a moment of time. New life is given where death once reigned. Lord, do that in some heart even now, just as I speak. Lord, impart new life into that deadened soul. It is for the sinner to repent and believe. Can we marry these things together? Not with our finite minds, no, but such as revealed in God's Word. And so in the mind of God, there is no discontinued between the sovereignty of God and salvation and the responsibility of man. They are married together in the mind of God, and we leave it there. It is for us to obey. It is for us to heed. It is for us to simply, dear God, respond to the gospel. And then as we look back from that moment of conversion, then we'll be able to say, Yes, God did start to work in my heart. Yes, I did start to hear His voice. I did begin to come to an understanding of where I stood with Thee. Lord, do that in some heart even now. Help them to respond even at the door. Grant them courage to speak with us and help us, dear Father, to live a life with a will that is inclined toward thee in righteousness. For we pray these, our prayers, in and through our Savior's precious name. Amen and amen. Thank you.