In the first book of Peter, Peter the
first epistle, and the first chapter, and third
verse, Blessed be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his
abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a
living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead.
We'll stop at that point.
I spent nine days in the, what's called
the American Kizzik, New Jersey, as one of
the speakers, and while there I had very
warm and personal and friendly fellowship.
With David Clifford, head of Matlock Bible Institute
in England, only 40 miles I believe he
said, or 70 was it, from Brother Ravenhill's
home.
Well, this man and I got along wonderfully
together.
He listened to me preach a while, and
then he said, well, I've figured you out.
He said, your method of preaching is not
to preach words, but to find out the
principles that lie back of the text and
preach that.
And I said, I guess you've hit it,
that's what I try to do.
Well, he said, at that rate, you could
preach endlessly on a book of the Bible.
And I said, well, I just closed a
year on the 17th of June.
It can be done.
And in the book of 1 Peter, first
chapter, third verse, I have already preached three
sermons, or two sermons from it.
The one called, Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We dug around at the roots and tried
to discover what he was saying about God
when he said, Blessed be God.
And we found that the same word in
the original is that which we use when
we say, eulogize.
He was telling us to eulogize God.
If you want to eulogize dead men, you'll
probably, when you know all the facts, you'll
blush at your own eulogy.
But if you want to eulogize God, you
never can overstate the case.
Then I went on to this one, which
according to his abundant mercy, and I stopped
there, and I talked about the abundant mercy
of God.
Today, I come to this part, God who
hath begotten us again unto a living hope
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
dead.
Now, Paul, or Peter here, it is Peter,
not Paul, who wrote this epistle, arrived at
a major miracle of the New Testament.
Now, I want to bear down and pause
and walk around her bulwarks and behold her
gates and walls thereof.
This major miracle we call begotten again.
This, like a great many, almost all Bible
teaching, has fallen into cold hands.
We feel as if we were in the
mortuary, instead of in the church of the
living God.
Instead of a man just having come fresh
out of a tomb, we feel as if
we were in the presence of a corpse
brought fresh in from the street.
But born again has become a word that
means precious little.
It is used as a hyphenated adjective among
us.
We say, yes, he's a born-again man.
I'm born again.
Is he born again?
And I revolt from it.
I don't mind telling you frankly that I
revolt from it.
I revolt from it not because I don't
believe it, but because I always shrink from
hearing dead men talk about live subjects.
And there isn't anything I have said quite
so chilling, and I think that a brother
of mine said it not so long ago
here too, there isn't anything quite so chilling,
quite so disheartening as a man without the
Holy Spirit preaching about the Holy Spirit.
And there isn't anything any worse, I guess,
than to hear the hyphenated adjective born-again
tossed around by people with manufactured smiles heading
to the nearest restroom.
Now, Peter talked about a major miracle.
That of being begotten again, born again.
The major miracle.
And I don't mind telling you that it
is my earnest faith that all that is
worthwhile in Christianity is a miracle.
I don't mind telling you that the trappings
and paraphernalia and outward dressings of Christianity I
can get along nicely without.
But there is a series of miracles that
throb and beat within the true message of
God and within the hearts of those who
believe truly.
And that's about all there is to the
Christian faith.
Supernatural grace has been the teaching of the
Church from Pentecost to the present hour.
I talked with a gentleman this week who
came to see me, two brethren, two preachers,
and one of them told me an amazing
story.
It was the story of being forced out
of a certain missionary society.
Forced out.
For no moral charges, no unethical charges, not
even any doctrinal charges.
But from throwing an emphasis where they claimed
it didn't belong.
And that emphasis was upon supernatural grace.
These friends believed they were fundamentalists all right,
but they believed the whole thing was a
mental thing.
You believe mentally, you receive Christ mentally, and
all that you do is a mental thing.
And a certain brother began to preach the
supernatural quality of grace.
And said that if a sinner repents, it's
supernatural.
And that if he gets under conviction, it's
supernatural.
And if he's unable to believe in God,
it's supernatural.
And he taught supernatural grace.
He was a Baptist preacher.
And the whole town, fundamentalist town, rose against
him.
Because he was preaching the supernatural quality of
the acts of God.
Now I don't mind telling you why I
said to him that strange thing, because I've
been preaching that ever since I can remember.
This church was founded on it.
We believe it.
We believe in the supernaturalness of the things
that God does for people.
And we believe that religion is a continuous
perpetuation of a major miracle.
And we do not believe in the mental
quality of things.
Now mentality is here, and it's a part
of us, and God redeems it too.
But the new birth is a miracle, a
major miracle.
It is a vital and unique work of
God in human nature.
Now I believe that if this was taught,
instead of gibbly hyphenated and tossed around, boom
again, I believe that if we'd stop and
get underneath this, to the divine principles that
lie there and realize that a truly born
again man is a man who has undergone
regenesis, supernatural regenesis.
As in the beginning, God generated the heaven
and the earth.
In the breast of a believing man, he
generates again.
It's regenesis.
Just as surely as the work of God
in calling the world out of nothing was
a major miracle, so the work of God
in calling a Christian out of a sinner,
making a Christian out of a sinner, is
a major miracle.
But in our day, we get them in
any way we can get them in.
And then after we get them in, we
try to work on them.
And we even have two works of grace
because the first one was so polygetically meaningless
and worthless that we try to have two.
Now I am not speaking against the two,
but I am saying that what used to
be done the first time a man met
God, nowadays we're having to invent some second
or third or fourth or fifth epoch down
the hill or up the hill to get
what we used to get the first time
we met God.
Now I believe in the anointing of the
Holy Ghost after regeneration.
But I also believe that we ought not
to preach down the new birth in order
to find a place for the anointing of
the Holy Ghost.
The old Methodist Christians were better Christians when
they were just merely regenerated than any of
these so-called deeper life people that I
run into now.
Because a major miracle took place, and they
wouldn't believe if a major miracle hadn't taken
place.
They wouldn't accept this pale, inefficient, and apologetic
believing.
They insisted upon a miracle taking place in
the human breasts.
So that Peter said, he hath begotten us
again unto a living hope.
And he was preaching there a miracle.
Now, this miracle was hinted at in the
Old Testament.
Creating me a clean heart, O God, renew
a right spirit within me.
There was at least a hint of a
miracle within the human breasts.
Not a reasoning yourself into a position, but
something happening that could not be explained.
I might take time out right here to
say what wasn't in my notes at all.
That just as soon as a psychologist can
explain what happens to a believer, that believer
has been unfrogged.
Just the moment that a man's experience in
Christ can be broken down and explained by
the psychologist, we have a church member on
our hands and not a Christian.
For what happens to a Christian can never
be explained by the psychologist.
He can only stand up respectfully and say,
behold the works of the Lord.
He never can explain it.
But this work of God brought in the
breast of a man was hinted at, I
say.
And then there are two passages in the
Old Testament that I want to read that
are hints of this.
Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that
I will make a new covenant with the
house of Israel and with the house of
Judah.
This shall be the covenant that I will
make with the house of Israel.
After those days, saith the Lord, I will
put my law in their inward parts and
write it in their heart, and will be
their God and they shall be my people.
And in Ezekiel, and I will give them
one heart and I will put a new
spirit within you, and I will take the
stormy heart out of your flesh and will
give them a heart of flesh, that they
may walk in my statutes and keep my
ordinances and do them, and they shall be
my people and I will be their God.
Now that is a hint of what happens,
a hint of regenesis, moral rebirth.
According to the New Testament, there is no
longer any hinting about it.
It is boldly and openly declared.
Our Savior said that if we came to
him and were not born again, we could
not enter the kingdom of God.
We had to be born from above, John
3.
In John 1.12, John said, as many
as received him, to them gave he power
to become sons of God, who were born,
not of blood, nor of the will of
the flesh, nor of the will of man,
but of God.
Now there is a work that is a
miracle.
Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5, if any
man be in Christ, he is a new
creature.
All things have passed away and all things
have become new.
You couldn't make it any stronger than that.
Then Peter says in 23rd verse, being born
again of the word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever.
James says in his first chapter, of his
own will begat he us, that we might
be a kind of first fruits of his
creatures.
Now that's as plainly as it can be
stated.
In other words, if you were setting out
to teach a major miracle within the human
heart, you would use those very words to
express it.
And if you wanted to make it very
emphatic, you would use those words to express
it.
If you wanted to strip it down until
it stood stark, unqualified before you, as a
strong, vital teaching of the word of God,
you would use those words concerning it.
In other words, the Holy Spirit could not
have said what he was setting out to
say and used any other words.
We express it.
And they tell us that there is supernatural
grace.
That there is a work which we may
call a major miracle.
There is a work which is as truly
a work of God as was the first
creation.
It is the creating of another man in
that heart where another man had been.
It is the putting of a new man
in the old man's place.
And we are born anew.
This draws a sharp line between those who
have become Christians by any other method and
those who have experienced true regenesis.
I have claimed all the time that if
we were securing examples of true regenesis, we
would not have to be talking about revival
so much.
The Church would be a miraculous group in
the midst of a hostile world and she
would be as separated from the world as
a can of oil floating on the ocean.
She would be in contact with it, but
she would not be of it.
She would be separated from it.
And we would be the most amazing people
in the world.
A whole group of true Christians.
A couple hundred people here listening to me
now.
And if every one of you had experienced
fully the miracle of regenesis, we would be
the most astonishing church in the city of
Chicago.
They would come from everywhere to look at
us and say, what are these people?
But we have watered down the miracle of
divine grace to a point where you actually
have to have a name on a record
to know if a fellow is a Christian
or not.
There is a difference.
And in that great and terrible day, there
will be those white with shock when they
find that they have depended upon a mental
assent to Christianity instead of upon the miracle
of the new birth.
Now he said we are begotten again.
And we are begotten again into a lively
hope.
And the word hope is one of the
great words that Christ gave us.
Have you noticed this about the New Testament?
That our Lord Jesus Christ rarely introduced a
word that wasn't known before.
Not even a word construction that wasn't known
before to Bible readers.
But that he almost invariably charged that word
with a new and wonderful meaning.
So that we go back to the Savior
and say he gave us that word.
Well actually he didn't.
It was a word that was used in
the Old Testament, perhaps in Greek literature.
But it was a word which now receives
a wonderful new meaning because the Savior took
it into his mouth.
So that word hope is a word we
may properly say Christ gave us.
Though it is used 140 times in the
Bible.
And better than that.
Better than counting the number of times that
it was used.
Better than finding a text where it is
used.
Is this.
That it is the drift and direction of
the whole Bible.
Hope is the direction the whole Bible takes.
It is the music of the whole Bible.
It is the heartbeat, the pulse, the atmosphere
of the whole Bible.
That word hope.
And it means a desirable expectation.
It means a pleasurable anticipation.
Pleasurable anticipation.
How many of us there are who pleasurably
anticipate that which we'll never, never receive.
Tennyson, in his wonderful memorial, paints a picture
so poignantly, sharply pathetic, that it's almost unbearable
when you read it.
He paints a picture in that smooth, musical
English in which he was a master, of
a bride, waiting for, or soon to be
bride, waiting for her loved one to return.
He had been somewhere in a far city
across the water and he was coming home.
And Tennyson tells with that sympathy and human
understanding that makes him the great poet that
he was.
Made him the great poet he was.
Tells him how this young woman, fresh with
anticipation, stood before the mirror and made herself
look as good as she could.
Got the best clothes she knew how.
For that evening he was coming.
And he indulges us a little in human
sympathy as we see this young lady prepare
herself for the long-awaited reunion.
Then he adds, but she doesn't know that
for days the one she loved has been
floating face up out on the sea.
She doesn't know that the ship whereon he
was returning has gone down with all of
its crew.
And that he stares tonight at the stars
with sightless eyes.
She doesn't know.
Pleasurable anticipation sometimes blows up in our faces.
Cruelly disappoints us.
And there's a picture of pleasurable fleshed anticipation
turning to bleak, pale cheeks, hollow in a
moment when the news is brought that her
loved one is dead.
That's the way human hopes do with us.
They throw us down.
But the Christian hope is alive.
For it is said here that he has
begotten us again unto a lively hope, but
the old English word lively three hundred and
forty years ago that word lively meant what
the word living means now.
Now lively means hopping around like a little
boy real fast and full of ginger.
But in those days it meant living.
And here is a word which comes from
God himself.
It is the strongest word in the Bible
for life.
And the strongest in the New Testament.
It is a word used of God himself
when it says he is the living God.
So that God takes a Christian's hope and
touches it with himself.
And imparts his own livingness to the hope
of the believer.
Once more, I repeat that Christians are living
too much in the present now.
And the pleasurable anticipation of better things to
come has almost died out of the church
of Christ.
Because now we don't need any tomorrow's heaven.
We're too well situated now.
We don't need to hope we have it
now.
That's the emphasis in our day.
And I think it is a wretched emphasis.
And when we do talk about the future
here we talk about eschatology instead of heaven.
But the true Christian is one who is
kind of sick of this world.
If I find anybody that settles down too
snugly into this world I am made to
doubt his spiritual regenesis.
Whether he has ever truly been born again.
He can live here and work here and
serve here.
But if I find he sits down into
the world like it's pinned into an old
and familiar glove I worry a little bit
about the man.
Because all the Christians I meet that are
amounting to anything are Christians that are very
much out of key with their age.
Very, very much out of tune with their
generation.
Jesus called it a wicked and adulterous generation.
And that generation has not improved any.
We're still the same wicked and adulterous generation
that were in the days of Jesus.
And if you can live in it too
comfortably I am being made to wonder whether
the miracle has ever been wrought within your
life or not.
When God works the miracle within the human
breast heaven becomes the Christian home immediately.
And he is drawn to it as a
bird is drawn in the springtime to fly
to the north.
There is a migratory instinct within the breast
of the bird.
And without knowing why and long about March
he suddenly begins to look at himself and
look around and feel dissatisfied.
Flap his wings a bit and finally takes
to the air and fans the cool breezes
long and far till he goes back to
what is his summer homeland.
And the Christian has a homeland and the
fact that we're not anticipating it nor looking
forward to it with any pleasure is a
serious mark of something that's wrong with us.
But that isn't what Peter had in mind
particularly when he talked about the Christian hope
though that's part of it.
And he says that the hope of the
Christian is something that's alive the way God
is alive.
I read some place I don't recall where
maybe a time magazine maybe a newspaper.
But I read that there had been one
of these posters going about like Roper and
Gallup posters and they had gone to the
man on the street the man and woman
on the street and they had taken a
cross section of the American public and asked
them whether they believed in God and were
they expected to go to heaven.
I think it was 82% of the
American people believe in God and expect to
go to heaven.
I don't like to deal in percentages my
ears but I should like boldly and bluntly
to say that I should guess that about
75% of that 82% are indulging
in an invalid hope.
A hope that can do nothing but dash
them when it's too late.
And clearly disillusion them when it's too late
to do anything about it.
I believe as the old solid preacher said
if you're going to go to heaven you
better begin to live like it now.
And if you're going to die like a
Christian you better live like a Christian now.
And I have no place in my heart
there is no hope in my heart for
those who indulge a vague hope.
There's a Christian hope that isn't vague.
It's valid.
The hope of the world is vain but
the hope of the Christian is a valid
hope.
And you can't out expect God.
Keep that in mind friend.
You can't out expect God.
It's unbelief that prevents our minds from soaring
into the celestial city and walking by faith
with God across the golden streets.
It's unbelief that keeps us narrowly tied down
here looking eagerly and anxiously to the newspaper
ad to see who's going to come and
preach to us to keep our spirits cheered
up.
Anybody that needs to have to be chucked
under the chin all the time to keep
him up is in bad shape spiritually and
needs something else.
Anybody that has to have the gospel preached
to him all the time and have it
repeated all the time something's wrong with him.
You've heard the gospel.
You have believed, you say.
You have turned to God from idols to
serve the living God and wait for his
son from heaven and why I have to
be always attending popular evangelistic meetings and listening
one time more to the same thing that
you've heard a thousand times.
Leaving therefore the first principles of the doctrine
of Christ the baptism and laying on the
bands and all such let us go on
in the perfection that the church of Christ
the latest gospel year that comes along it's
satisfied because they have cowbells and a handsaw
and a lot of other fine things.
You can get them at the 8th Street
Theater in the night by just writing in.
Can't think of a single one of their
names but anyway I know they're down there
with their cowbells and banjos and their hillbilly
songs and if that's what you want go
down there and get it.
And if the gospel year that's what you
want go and get it.
They preach the empty seats but the
Christian's hope is a valid hope.
He has been born of God there has
been an act as truly miraculous as that
act described in the beginning God created the
heaven and the earth.
There's been a new creation there and he
has a hope now it's a valid hope
no emptiness there can't come through it's a
valid hope.
And your expectation should rise and you should
challenge God and begin to dream high dreams
of faith and spiritual expectation and expect God
to meet them.
When Jesus said I go to prepare a
mansion a place for you in my father's
house there are many mansions the best some
of us can do is to think of
a home house or some house a little
better where our Savior has gone to prepare
the simplest and poorest mansion there would make
a $125,000 mansion on the Gold Coast
look like a growth stock by comparison.
There isn't in humanity any place the Taj
Mahal or Buckingham Palace or the White House
or what have you that can compare with
the glory that belongs to the truly true
child of God who has known the major
miracle who has been changed by an inward
operation of supernatural grace unto an inheritance unto
a hope and you can't out hope God
and you can't out expect God and remember
that all your hopes are finite and all
of God's ability is infinite.
Remember that your highest hopes have a limit
but the ability for God to come through
remember you're on earth and God is in
heaven therefore don't be afraid to hope don't
be afraid to expect don't be afraid to
dream high spiritual dreams and don't be afraid
to read your Bible and don't be afraid
to read your Bible and believe it and
don't be afraid to read the book of
Revelation and don't let anybody shoo you away
and say it's Oriental imagery of course it
is Oriental imagery it can't be said so
that anything he describes in the book of
Revelation you will find the reality is infinitely
greater than his description and any hope the
Christian has let it soar, let it loose
like a bird into the blue sky let
it spread its wings and soar heavenward.