Greg Robinson - Now We Believe- John’s Guide to Growing Our Faith - Class 4 - Men Loved Darkness

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   Thanks, brother James. Good morning, everyone. OK, so I’d like to start out this morning sharing with you some of the scriptural references and characters of the Bible that have helped people’s faith to be built up. And I’ve been very pleased with the ones that I’ve gotten so far. So if you have some after today or today, later today, bring them to me as well.

2. 0:22

   So we actually started out with Ruth the Moabitess. Ruth was able to see the truth in her mother-in-law and chose the truth. Actually we I was thinking we were going to end with Naomi, but we had a few more. Naomi made the good choice to go back even with all of the bad things that had happened to her. Rahab just had an incredible faith. The woman that anointed Jesus feet when others was saying that, that she was wasting money that could have been given to the poor Peter.

3. 0:55

   And Peter’s my only duplicate and I was surprised by that. In the list of people so far, Peter is so real. He’s probably better than me and yet people didn’t think of him that way. He’s so complex, he’s so real, but then he walks on the water and then he falls into the water. So a great guy with Peter and the brother that told me about Peter was wondering why I didn’t have a class on Peter. So yeah, good point.

4. 1:21

   Maybe if he gives me a little bit more information, we could do that in the future. Elijah in his failure, and I thought that was great. He had some some things he had to learn. Timothy because he was in a situation just like mine. The brother told me Romans talks about being justified by faith. We had Romans chapter 838 and 39. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature should be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

5. 1:58

   So very, very powerful verses there, Joseph. He says over and over again. The Scripture says over and over again that God was with him. Psalm 11937 turn my eyes from looking at worthless things we thought of we’re thinking there about the the gods of this world, Gideon God’s incredible patience with Gideon and then Peter for the second time, Peter always gets back up. We had Psalm one verse one blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. They’re like a tree that’s planted by the rivers of water. So again, just really, really powerful. We had Joshua be strong and of good courage from a sister going through some very difficult times. And then we had job and the suffering of job from a brother that’s also going through some some very difficult times and looked at job for for strength in that. So those are really good.

6. 3:04

   I guess I got a couple more. I thought that was the end. Genesis 15 One after these things, the word of the Lord came unto Abraham in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. And the brother here says that he likes to substitute his own name in there and instead of Abram.

7. 3:23

   So that’s really good. We had Jephthah’s daughter who gave a life of service and was willing to submit to a vow that wasn’t even her own in her in her humility. Joshua 9. And that could just do the whole class. I think on these right? Joshua one verse 9. Have I not commanded you be strong and of good courage? So that was a really good one as well. So some great things that we have here. Please keep them coming and we’ll we’ll share them with others later on.

8. 3:54

   So from yesterday, just a quick a quick review of yesterday. We learned that if we want to have a saving faith, that we must have the knowledge of the Word of God if we want to have a saving faith. I mean, there’s people that have belief, but it’s not a saving belief unless it’s based on the Word of God. We also learned that it’s possible for us to read the Word and to not develop faith, to be in it, to be academic with it, and for not to have an impact on us. So today what we’re going to look at is we’re going to look at the example of Nicodemus.

9. 4:25

   And after Jesus left Capernaum, sorry, he left Cana, he went to Capernaum, and then he goes up to Jerusalem for the first time publicly, really in his ministry to go to the feast of the Passover. So the first Passover, his first real trip to Jerusalem in his ministry. And he makes a really big appearance at that place.

10. 4:47

    And the title of this class, as James mentioned, is Men Loved Darkness. And it’s about really, when it comes down to it, the importance of the belief that we have. We might think that it doesn’t matter what we believe. And that’s a, that’s a very common idea, but it very much matters what we believe. And that’s what Jesus is going to, he’s going to work here with Nicodemus to show him in chapter chapter 3. So if you open your Bibles to chapter 2, there’s a little bit of information in Chapter 2 that gets us started with the story of Nicodemus.

11. 5:23

    Picture the people all at the Passover that this huge, huge festival commemorating Israel’s deliverance from Egypt, their deliverance from the bondage to sin. That’s important for what we’re going to look at today. The Passover feast was also known as the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Also very important, the people would remove leaven from their homes.

12. 5:45

    So this is the beginning of the year. They’re removing leaven from their homes, and this is a great start to the year, kind of giving them the need or making them understand the need to do that for the whole year. And that was their focus. And so people from all over Israel would come to Jerusalem. And Josephus tells us that at these during the 1st century, there might be as many as 3 million people that would come up to Jerusalem for the Passover. Now, that seems like an incredibly large number, but that’s what Josephus tells us about that. So Jesus comes into the city for the feast and the first thing he does, I found very surprising.

13. 6:21

    The first thing he does is he goes into the temple and he finds the people that are selling oxen, sheep and doves and the money changers and he makes a whip of small cords and he drives them out of the temple. We’re told that he was consumed with his zeal for God’s house, his his heat, his zeal, which is his heat.

14. 6:41

    He was so upset for the way that the temple was being misused and he said don’t make my father’s house a House of trade or a House of merchandise. It was supposed to be instead a House of prayer for all nations. Now I wonder what the people would have thought as Jesus did that as he came up.

15. 7:02

    Here’s this guy that they they may have heard of from what he’d been doing already, and he comes up and he drives out the money changers out of out of his father’s house.

16. 7:15

    I wonder what they would have been thinking would they’ve been wondering why isn’t somebody stopping him from doing that? I bet there would have been some that were thinking, you know, it’s about time somebody did that to those guys that are there in the temple. And I think the people of Jerusalem, the people that were there for the for the Passover would never have forgotten the day that Jesus came and he cleansed the temple. And they would have been asking who is he? Why is he so upset?

17. 7:45

    Is he a prophet? Is he the prophet like Moses? Is he the Messiah? And then we get this look into the mind of the Pharisees in John 2 verse 18. And what are they thinking? They say to Jesus, what sign can you give us for doing these things? What makes you think that you can drive us out of the temple?

18. 8:10

    They would have thought, you know, if he’s a prophet, if he’s if he’s the Messiah, he should be able to give us some sort of a sign in verse 23 says he was doing miracles. Look at verse 23 says when Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast. Many believe, so get your marking pencils out for that. He believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing so Jesus was doing signs.

19. 8:39

    Imagine the spectacle. So we’ve already had one spectacle of him in the temple. Now imagine the second spectacle of Jesus starting to do miracles. People had never seen miracles before, right? If they’d read about them, but they’ve never seen one. And Jesus is doing these miracles in Jerusalem. And they would have been asking, is this the Messiah?

20. 9:00

    Is this, is this the Kingdom of God that John the Baptist has been talking about? And the news of Jesus would have would have raced through the city of Jerusalem. And John tells us that because of those miracles, many people believed in Jesus. There’s no doubt that many people believed that the Messiah had come.

21. 9:20

    And now I think it would be really cool to have been able to just stop right there. Hundreds of thousands of people believed that the Messiah had come. They believed that Israel was about to be restored. But verse 24 and 25 say something that’s really unusual, really makes us think, and I think that’s that’s what John is trying to do here. Verse 24 it says, but Jesus on his part did not entrust that word and trust, interestingly enough, is the same word for believe that we’ve been looking at. So Jesus on his part did not believe himself to them, so he didn’t entrust himself to them.

22. 10:06

    Literally, the word there is the word believe, and it’s a play on words. They believed in him, but he did not believe in them. They were not the kind of people that Jesus could put his trust in. Now that’s an interesting addition to our study of belief, isn’t it? Sometimes people that believe in Jesus are of no use to him. Then John I think explains this somewhat for us. He says because he knew all people. And verse 25 says and he needed no one to bear witness about man for he himself knew what was in man. All right, what’s John saying here? A lot of people believe that Jesus had come from God, that he was the Messiah and they’d taken and, and had Jesus at this point in time taken the throne, they would have been happy to follow him, probably by the millions.

23. 11:05

    But we know that when later on, when Jesus does take the throne, what happens? Sorry, later on when Jesus doesn’t take the throne, what happens? He instead goes to the cross and their belief in him is is is long gone. So as chapter 2 ends, we’re, we’re left wondering what John is actually telling us here about belief. But at the end of chapter 2, then if you look at that last verse, it ends by telling us that Jesus knew what was in man. And then chapter 3 begins with now there was a man. John is saying, look, I, I, I’ve left something here for you that’s going to make you wonder.

24. 11:47

    I’m now going to explain to you that point. I’m going to explain to you what I was trying to say to you, and I’m going to do it in this man, Nicodemus. I’m going to show you exactly what I had in mind. And Nicodemus is a man which is just like the people of Jerusalem. He’s a man which believed in Jesus because he saw the miracles and he’s also a man that Jesus did not believe in. As we’re going to see as we read through this now we know Nicodemus and we know in the end that this is this is really just the beginning of a wonderful story of a man that has great faith, but that’s not where he’s at in John chapter 3. So John chapter 3, verse one.

25. 12:26

    And there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. So he’s a, he’s a teacher in Israel. He’s a ruler. It’s literally chief ruler, the member of the Sanhedrin, and he’s one of the chief teachers. We find out later on he knows his Bible in that way. He’s like Nathaniel.

26. 12:46

    So we would expect if he comes to Jesus, that he has a conversation with Jesus, that his faith would be ready to go. Just just with a few mentions, just like Nathaniel’s was just a couple of statements that it should just just click for him. But that’s not where Nicodemus is. Nicodemus famously comes to Jesus, we’re told at night and he says to Jesus in verse 2, Rabbi, we know that you’re a teacher, come from God for no one could do these signs that you do unless God is with him. So like we said, he’s just like the crowds at the Passover. He believes.

27. 13:23

    Now what do you think this teacher of Israel would have been thinking about Jesus? What do you think he’s thinking as he comes at night to Jesus? I think he’s open to the idea that Jesus was the Messiah. Maybe he’d come to find out what Jesus plan was, maybe to see how he and the Pharisees could be a part of that plan. What was Nicodemus expecting from the Messiah? We get a clue if we get out to verse 13 and verse 14. We get a clue where Jesus uses a title for himself, implying that this is what the conversation is about with Nicodemus. He uses the title for himself.

28. 14:08

    That’s very familiar to the Jews. And he calls himself the Son of Man. And of all the names that Jesus uses for himself, the Son of Man is the name, the title that he uses the most. And in verse 14, he tells Nicodemus that the Son of Man must be lifted up. So our question is, we’re going to try to research and look at you.

29. 14:32

    What did the term the Son of Man mean to Nicodemus? There’s a couple of helpful prophecies that probably come to your mind. Let’s go first to Psalm 8. So Psalm 8 is about the work of Christ and the Saints. It’s written by David after he killed Goliath, and it’s about the victory ultimately of Christ and the victory of the Saints.

30. 14:57

    Psalm 8 verse 4 says, what is man? That thou art mindful of him and the Son of man that thou visitest him. Now Rotherham there says that thou should set him in charge. So this is talking about the Son of man being set in charge by God. He says for thou has made him a little lower than the angels and we recognize that as a quote from Hebrews 2.

31. 15:21

    So he’s he’s this is clearly a reference to Christ. And then he continues in verse verse 5. He says, what is man that thou are mindful of him for thou has made him a little lower than the angels. See here. And then he says, And as crowned him with glory and honor, Thou made us him to have dominion over the works of thy hands. And what do we think of when we think of dominion? We think about man having dominion. We think about Genesis chapter 1. I think Genesis 1 and verse 26.

32. 15:58

    So Genesis 1 and 26 talks about the dominion that God intended for man to have over His creation. So he says thou made us him to have dominion over the works of thy hands. Thou has put all things under his feet. Well Genesis one verse 26 also talks about man being created in the image of God.

33. 16:20

    The image here in, in Genesis one, verse 26, I should say, talks about Jesus or man being given the ability to develop godly thinking and a godly character and ability that the other creatures didn’t have. However, we know Adam and Eve didn’t didn’t live up to that. So verse 8 talks about all things being put under his feet. The Son of man was going to rule over creation. So that’s interesting.

34. 16:46

    That would have been on the mind of, of, of Nicodemus as he thinks about the son of man, who’s also the the Messiah. Let’s also go to another one. You’ll be very familiar with Daniel Chapter 7. Now Daniel Chapter 7, we know as a very important prophecy of the of the world empires that we’re going to come after Babylon. We know the lion represents Babylon, the bear Medo, Persia, the leopard, Greece.

35. 17:13

    And then the 4th beast represents Rome. So that’s the context of Daniel Chapter 7. And Daniel 7 is where the Son of man is mentioned. And verse 13, Daniel 7, verse 13, I think it’s, it’s probably a verse that would have been a bit confusing to them. It’s pretty clear to us. Daniel 713 says I saw in the night visions and behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven. It came to the ancient of days and they brought him near before him.

36. 17:43

    And we recognize this, I think as the as a being fulfilled in Acts chapter 1 when Christ ascended up into the clouds and ultimately went to the right hand of God and he’s taken into the presence of God. So Jesus is is brought near to the ancient of days is what that’s telling us.

37. 18:01

    So what does he say next? He says, and there was given him dominion and glory and a Kingdom that all people and nations and languages should serve him. So if you’re a Jew and you’re waiting for the Messiah to come and you recognize that the Messiah has this name, the Son of Man, that’s a name that was that was recognized by them. You’re thinking this is going to be great. The Jews are the ones that are going to be set to be in control of God’s creation and all people, all nations are going to serve this Messiah and they’re going to serve the Jews along with it.

38. 18:45

    His dominion, it says it’s an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away in his Kingdom, that which should not be destroyed. And then verse 26 and 27, I think the Jews would have found as their their favorite part. That’s the best part of this prophecy. It says, but the judgments shall sit. And and this is talking about the judgment against the 4th beast. And who was the 4th beast against who was the 4th beast again?

39. 19:11

    Rome, right. So they’re sitting there under the control of Rome. Rome is, is, is their master. Rome is the empire that’s ruling over them. And they’re thinking our Messiah is going to come, and our Messiah is going to get rid of Rome. And so they’re thinking, guess what? This is happening. The judgments shall sit.

40. 19:28

    They shall take away his dominion. Rome’s going to be gone to consume and to destroy it to the end. And the Kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the Kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the Saints of the Most High, whose Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him. Now I think we get a taste now of the excitement that people would have been starting to feel at that Passover as Jesus performs these miracles, as Jesus goes into the temple and, and, and makes a statement in the temple about these things. So they’re looking for the Messiah to come to defeat Rome, to get Rome out of the picture and to make Israel great again. Here’s a.

41. 20:10

    Here’s a. A list that I put together kind of giving us an idea, I think we don’t know. I think of what Nicodemus would have been expecting and what the Jews would have been expecting for the restoration of Israel. So the Jews expect expectation for the restoration of the Kingdom. They they would have expected the Messiah would come and we’d be a powerful world leader.

42. 20:32

    They would expect Rome, the 4th beast, to be destroyed. They would expect the Messiah would restore Israel and possess the promised land from the Nile to the Euphrates. They would expect the Messiah to rule the nations with the Jews at his side. And Nicodemus and I think the Jews that were aware of these prophecies probably can almost taste it at this point in time. So I’ve changed the title a little bit. The things concerning the Kingdom of God, and you might recognize that title, The Things concerning the Kingdom of God. I think it’s helpful for us to think about Nathaniel. I’m sorry, Nicodemus, those are going to get me probably again and again.

43. 21:13

    But it’s helpful for us to think here about Nicodemus, understanding of the things concerning the Kingdom of God, and to think about the importance that that term has for us in how we define the gospel. We define it as the things concerning the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ. And Nicodemus has that idea in mind, the things concerning the Kingdom of God and is, I think, a pretty good idea of what that’s going to be like.

44. 21:41

    So with that in mind, then let’s go back to John three and three and let’s see how this this works as we go. So Nicodemus comes to Jesus and he says, we know that you’re a teacher that has come from God, and he’s probably thinking, we want to work with you in setting up the Kingdom and all the stuff that’s on the screen right now. We want to be a part of all of that because that looks great to us.

45. 22:07

    And Jesus says to Nicodemus, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. Jesus says, actually, Nicodemus, you’re not fit to be a part of God’s Kingdom. You don’t have belief.

46. 22:32

    Jesus says the problem is you haven’t been born again. Now, Nicodemus, I think, would have been familiar with baptism. He would be familiar with, of course, John the Baptist going out and baptizing it and the popularity of John the Baptist doing that. But to the Pharisees, baptism was for Gentiles. They were the ones that needed to be baptized because they were not God’s chosen people like the Jews were, and so they needed to be reborn as Jews.

47. 23:06

    They needed to become proselytes. And to the Pharisees, it would have made sense that John the Baptist was baptizing the sinners of Israel because they definitely needed to start their lives again. Those people are sinners. That’s why they need to be baptized. But the Pharisees looked at themselves and they said, you know, we’ve already been born into the to the right nation. We’re already the seed of Abraham. We’re not Gentiles and we’re righteous. We’re not sinners.

48. 23:37

    And so the Pharisees had not been baptized. Luke actually tells us that the Pharisees rejected John the Baptist and that they refused to be baptized. That’s Luke Chapter 7, verse 29 and 30. It says the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves not having been baptized by John. So it’s fair to say that Nicodemus would have been taken back, I think by the words of Jesus.

49. 24:04

    So in verse 4, we have Nicodemus’s reply and I think there’s, there’s some sarcasm there. There’s some, some he’s not happy with the answer that Jesus has given him, what Jesus has said. And there’s some definitely some ignorance in Nicodemus’s reply. So Nicodemus says, how can a man be born when he’s old?

50. 24:22

    Can you enter a second time in his mother’s womb and be born? He just doesn’t know what to say. It’s like he’s saying Jesus to Jesus. Are you insulting me? Do you expect me to be born again? Maybe. Maybe I’m thinking I’m, I’m not a Gentile. I’m not like those sinners that are going out to John the Baptist. So in verse 5, what does Jesus do? He says, OK, I’m going to explain it to you. He says truly, truly.

51. 24:48

    So this is important. Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. He says born of water and that’s that’s clearly talking about baptism. Nicodemus, I think, would have understood that that’s what he was talking about, the fact that they had not gone out to be baptized and that Jesus was was commenting on that. But what did Jesus mean by being born of the Spirit? Nicodemus wasn’t familiar with that term, but what does it mean to be born of the spirit?

52. 25:21

    Because that’s a really important, really important question. But being born of the spirit is ultimately the process that leads to immortality, the process that leads us to having a spirit body. And being immortal is an important part, is a critical part of being born into God’s family and being a part of God’s family because God our Father himself is immortal.

53. 25:50

    So I want to spend just a minute on that process and just to see what what Nicodemus was missing in his thinking. Born of the Spirit. So this is the part now that I’ve titled as and the name of Jesus Christ. I’ve taken a bit of a liberty there. And I think you’ll recognize these as probably the questions that you’re asked that are asked to a person that’s being baptized, right? Many ecclesias would do that.

54. 26:15

    You’ll recognize these as being part of the statement of faith, the things concerning the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ. So the things concerning the Kingdom of God were things that Nicodemus, I think, believed, and the name of Jesus Christ roughly here are the things that Jesus, sorry, Nicodemus, doesn’t understand about God’s plan, but these are things that he wants him to understand.

55. 26:37

    So let’s go back then to the start. So let’s see God’s plan then for, for the name of Jesus Christ is to fill the earth with righteous immortal people, people that are born of the spirit, not just not just mentally born of the spirit, but ultimately given immortality is the idea here. And it says, before we will be given immortal bodies or spirit bodies, we must replace human thinking with godly thinking. Developing spiritual thinking requires the transformation of our minds by the gradual assimilation of divine ideas. That that kind of quotes from from John Carter’s book on this on, on the Gospel of John, which we’ll look at a quote from there in just a minute.

56. 27:28

    So Jesus is using this term of of born because it’s a process like the development of a child. It takes time in the Word of God. It takes the trials of life. It takes God’s influence in our lives. And this change takes place in us. This birth process takes place in us, but it will only happen if we’re changed by, of course, the Word of God.

57. 27:53

    And at the return of Christ, those that have developed minds of the Spirit walk after the Spirit will be given immortal bodies. And so then our last one, only people born of the Spirit will rule the world with Christ. And that was that was what Jesus was saying to Nicodemus. Now there’s a lot of verses that we could go to.

58. 28:15

    There’s actually a very large number of that we could go to that give us this idea of being born of the Spirit. But I like Galatians 5 because we all know Galatians 5 and the fruit of the Spirit because it describes the mind of the Spirit. And our, I mean, our camp is, is perfect for this. Now, isn’t it?

59. 28:31

    This idea of developing the mind of Christ, It’s the mind of the Spirit. It’s, it’s the thinking and the character and the ideas of our heavenly Father and developing those. So Galatians 5 talks about the fruit of the Spirit. And I like this because we can look at these words and we can look at our lives and say, how are we doing? We can almost measure our development in spiritual things, in this spiritual being born of the spirit and see how we’re doing.

60. 28:58

    So if we’re born of the spirit, we’ll be developing love, we’ll be developing a self sacrificing love. We’ll be developing joy, a sense of happiness and purpose, recognizing what God has done for us, and peace and patience and kindness and goodness. And there’s a great one, right? Faith and gentleness and self-control. And he says against these, there’s no law.

61. 29:21

    He says basically there’s no law that you could keep that’s going to get you to a place where these things are being developed in you. It comes not from keeping the law, but it comes from a higher level of thinking. OK, so here’s the quote that from John Carter. He says the doctrine of Christ is one that purifies and sanctifies when its principles are heartily espoused and the mind is renewed by the gradual assimilation of divine ideas leading to a transformation of the individual.

62. 29:55

    So we’re going through this process, the continual long process at it. The older you get, the more you recognize that this process has been taking place in us. The old man is put off, the new man is put on, and the character so formed is prepared for an abiding place in the Kingdom of God. I guess that’s a great definition of what the being born of the Spirit is all about.

63. 30:20

    So I’m going to put together on the screen here just some steps that lead to to the Kingdom. And this is way, way, way abbreviated. So don’t think that this is a comprehensive list of these. So the first one in the steps of of our path to the Kingdom, those who embrace God’s way and fight sin in their lives will be given immortality because they have been born fully of the spirit which which is being given immortality. The next one, they’ll be part of Christ’s family and they’ll rule with him.

64. 30:58

    Then the Messiah will come to Israel. So now bring in Nicodemus. This is where Nicodemus starts to know the first principles here that we’re looking at. And then what he understands and what he’s looking for is Rome, the 4th beast will be destroyed. He and his people will restore Israel, possessing the land promised from the Nile to the Euphrates. And so he’s looking for all of this, all of this. But the problem with Nicodemus is that all that he can see, really, when he looks at this and the steps leading to the Kingdom is the Messiah comes.

65. 31:34

    Rome’s destroyed and Israel’s restored. He’s missing that first section there of God’s plan and purpose for the bringing of the Kingdom. Another way of putting this, if you think about the message that John the Baptist had, the proclamation of John the Baptist was what? When he came, the proclamation of Jesus was exactly the same when his ministry began, right? Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand. Now when Nicodemus and the Pharisees saw that, they didn’t see repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand. They saw the Kingdom of heaven is at hand, right? That’s what they saw.

66. 32:16

    They completely forgot about the repent part because they didn’t understand the process of being born of the Spirit. They didn’t recognize that that was necessary. So let’s go back then to John. John chapter 3, verse 6. Jesus says that which is born of the flesh is flesh. Fleshly dying parents have children that are fleshly dying people. That’s not what the kingdom’s going to be made-up of. He says you don’t know, you don’t understand. He says, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Being born of the spirit yields people that are like God, people that are spiritually minded, people that could be made immortal and God will make immortal. That’s what the Kingdom is going to be made-up of. And so he continues in verse 7, he says, don’t marvel that I said you must be born again.

67. 33:08

    Nicodemus was was marveling. He was saying, I no way, I can’t, I don’t believe this. I don’t understand this. He knew his Bible really, really well. He was a teacher in Israel. He probably thought Jesus could be the Messiah. But was it possible that he and the other Pharisees did not understand what God was doing?

68. 33:31

    Was there religion wrong? In verse 8, Jesus explains that the Spirit of God works like the wind. We can’t see it. We don’t know where it comes from. We don’t know where it’s going. The Spirit is invisible. It’s powerful. It had brought the Word to mankind. That was John, one that we looked at on the first class.

69. 33:53

    It brought about the birth of Jesus. It was at work in the miracles that Jesus was doing. It was at work in the words that he spoke. It was working to bring people to immortality, to build God’s family. In verse 9, Nicodemus says to him, how can these things be? He’s bewildered. He didn’t really understand what Jesus was saying, but he should have known these things. Look what Jesus says in verse 10. He says, are you a teacher of Israel and you don’t understand these things?

70. 34:26

    How could the guy in charge of preparing the people for the Kingdom not understand the need to be born of the Spirit? And the question we have to ask is how did the crux, how did the key concept of salvation get dropped out of the religion of Israel? And how do they miss the need to be born of the Spirit? And the answer is, is that the religious system in Israel had changed the gospel.

71. 35:01

    And it changed the gospel because men loved darkness. We love to do what we want to do. And so it was a natural thing to happen for God’s commands, God’s word, to be changed by the traditions of men. And so little by little, the religion of Israel lost sight of the need to be born of the Spirit.

72. 35:29

    Now they still had a really good vision of what the Son of Man was going to do, right? But they’d lost sight of the need to be born of the Spirit. Let’s go back to John. One, this helps us, I think, to understand even more fully what we read about in John chapter 1 verses 1112 and 13.

73. 35:49

    Here’s John and he’s telling us about God’s word coming to Israel. He says he and remember that was God’s God coming through his word. He came to his own and his people did not receive him, but to all who did receive him. So all that did except God’s word who believed in his name. So all those that accepted his word and who embraced God’s plan to have a family, He gave them the right to become the children of God.

74. 36:24

    He made it possible for those people to be his children, for them to be immortal. He says verse 13, who were born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but they were born of God. They were born again, not of the flesh. They were people that were born of the Spirit. That’s the same concept that that Nicodemus didn’t understand, but Jesus is trying to get him to understand. Now come with me to Galatians chapter 5 S again, the words of Paul here.

75. 37:01

    And I probably in this case, I’ve highlighted part of it, but I probably should have highlighted the whole verse here. But then that would be kind of counterproductive, right? But this verse shows us it comes after the the fruit of the spirit that we’ve already looked at and it helps us to understand.

76. 37:15

    So he says verse 24, and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and its desires. It’s the same message, isn’t it? If we want to be a part of Christ’s family, we have to crucify the flesh and we have to be born again. That means the death of the old person and the development of a new person, a development of the mind of Christ in US. All right, so let’s go back to John 3. Now with this with this in mind, let’s see what Nicodemus has to say to Jesus about this.

77. 37:53

    He says, and as MO sorry, Jesus says to Nicodemus, he says, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. And what’s that a reference to? It’s a reference to the children of Israel in the wilderness that were being bitten by by the snakes, by the serpents. And the people in the wilderness were were to learn from this, that the serpent represented the power of sin and that all mankind had been bitten by sin and that all of mankind is dying from that.

78. 38:25

    And the only way to combat that bite of the serpent was for it to be put on the cross for for the flesh, the thinking of the flesh to be put on the cross. And so he says that’s exactly what has to happen to the Son of Man. He’s got to be lifted up on the cross too.

79. 38:44

    Now you can understand why Nicodemus has a problem with that. He’s thinking, Son of man, this is the guy that’s going to come and he’s going to destroy Rome and he’s going to deliver us and he’s going to make Israel, restore Israel to to what God had promised it would be like. And, and he’s being told here, no, the Son of Man has to be put on the cross. The ruler of mankind who’s going to defeat the 4th beast has got to be put on the cross first.

80. 39:09

    Now Paul tells us that the world thinks that’s crazy, that it’s king. Israel’s king would be put on the cross, the cross, the Savior on the cross. Paul says that a crucified king was a stumbling block to the Jews and to the Greeks. It was foolishness because they didn’t understand that if we want to be in the Kingdom of God, we must be fighting sin in our lives.

81. 39:35

    Sin must be what we’re trying to defeat. So verse 14, John 314, again, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, verse 15, that whosoever believes in him may have eternal life. Whoever sees how Jesus puts sin on the cross, how he fought it and beat it, and whoever says, yeah, I need to do the same thing. I need to put to death the fleshly person that I am. I need to put that on the cross.

82. 40:08

    I need to become a different person. Whoever believes that that’s right. He says they may have eternal life. It’s so powerful, isn’t it, when we think about this, this conversation with Nicodemus and then possibly the the most well known verse in the whole world, verse 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.

83. 40:30

    God was so intent on us understanding the need to be born again, so intent on showing this us this process. It was so important that He gave his only Son in order to make that happen, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Belief in the cross, in the process of being born in this of the Spirit brings life.

84. 40:55

    So in verse 17, Jesus then answers some more of the thoughts of Nicodemus. He says, for God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world. Nicodemus believed that the Messiah would come and that he would condemn the Gentiles and the Jews. The righteous Jews would be set up to rule over the world.

85. 41:15

    But that wasn’t it at all. He came that the world might be saved through him. The Gentiles included not just the Jews, but the Gentiles. So thinking back then to the end of John 2, when Jesus made his first a public, public appearance in Jerusalem, millions of people knew that Jesus had done those miracles. They were amazed at those miracles. They believed those miracles.

86. 41:45

    But they didn’t understand the gospel. They didn’t understand the things concerning the Kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ. The religion of the Jews had lost sight of the need for people to be born again, and so they were of no use to Jesus. He didn’t believe in them. And Nicodemus, the teacher in Israel was also no use to Jesus.

87. 42:11

    He couldn’t believe in him either. John 3 verse 19 says, and this is the judgement, this is the conclusion. Light has come into the world, and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. They preferred not to know because they wanted to keep doing what they were doing, and they wanted to keep serving sin. And so the religion of Israel had eroded the gospel of God to such an extent that it could no longer save the people. They’d substituted the traditions of man for the word of God and as a result, that couldn’t save. And even though Nicodemus was a teacher in Israel and he clearly believed that Jesus had come from God, he was not fit for the Kingdom and he was not fit because the gospel he preached was not the true gospel.

88. 43:11

    Now I think we can learn a lot from that, especially today in in the world that we live in today, the challenges that we face today. I’ve tried to sum up here on a on the screen. Human thinking seduces us into letting human thinking stay even when we know we need to be, replacing human thinking to thinking the flesh with godly thinking. We love darkness so much that it’s really hard for us to do it.

89. 43:39

    And what happens is modern culture has a way of legitimizing sin and making the fight against sin seem barbaric. Like why would you try to fight against those things? Why would you go against that? And So what we find is, is that many groups, many religions will adapt to the culture. They’ll allow for changes in the culture in their gospel, and they’ll move the line on what it means to be godly.

90. 44:09

    We might think of of some of the the sins that we know will keep people from the Kingdom fornication, the erosion of the family unit, greed, dishonesty. We can. We can read about these. These are practices that are so common in our culture that religion hesitates to confront them. And so modern religion often follows modern culture, constantly eroding the importance of the fighting of sin.

91. 44:36

    That’s what had happened in Israel. Many religions have adapted to accept the works of the flesh, changing their doctrines. So here are some of the ideas that I, I could think of. And I, I think that this list probably is much, much, much bigger than this. But here are some of the ideas that go completely counter to the idea of being born of the Spirit.

92. 44:57

    OK, the first one, the substitution of Christ, that somehow Christ has already paid the price for sin. It’s all been done for us, that there’s no need for us to develop the mind of the Spirit. That’s a common teaching. Most I think would believe this, that Christ died for us and it’s all done. No need for us to develop the mind of the spirit. But that takes us into the same same position as Nicodemus was in looking just at the Kingdom.

93. 45:24

    Look at the reward and not at the the part that we have to do. We think about maybe the devil. The devil gives the idea that we don’t need to change our thinking. We just need to get rid of the devil because it’s the devil’s fault. We’re good. It’s it’s just the devil that’s the one that’s causing sin.

94. 45:41

    What about once saved, always saved right? You’re good no matter what. You really don’t need to change. Just just accept Jesus. That’s all you need to do. You don’t need to go through the process of being born of the spirit and and maybe the most popular 1 today is you doesn’t matter what you it doesn’t matter what you believe God will accept everyone into his family and that’s completely counter where’s the battle against sin in that there isn’t 1.

95. 46:10

    Where’s the, the being born of the spirit in that there it’s not there. As I said, I think that if you if you went through the the, the, the doctrines that are a problem that challenge God, you’ll find that it’s it’s to accommodate the flesh very, very frequently wrong doctrines are are based on the, the desire to accommodate our fleshly desires.

96. 46:31

    And so Nicodemus had to learn that he had to learn that Jesus had to be lifted up on the cross. He had to learn that flesh had to be put to death.

97. 46:45

    And you know what? He learned it. He learned it when Christ said that the Son of Man have to be lifted up, Nicodemus thought that that was crazy. But in John 19, when Jesus was on the cross, dead on the cross, Nicodemus is there. He’s there with Joseph of Arimathea, and he’s there lifting Jesus off the cross.

98. 47:19

    And finally, Nicodemus knew what it meant to be born of the Spirit. And so today we have really just just one lesson, one key lesson. And that key lesson is, unless we’re born of the Spirit, that’s all the water and of the Spirit, we cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. Thank you.