Welcome to the Emmaus Bible Hour. This is a program for you and your family. A time to open the Bible and see what God has to say to us through His Word. Hello everyone, Ken Engle here, and we're happy to be with you again for another study. Today's session brings us to lesson number seven in this very illuminating course, What the Bible Teaches. Now I hope you have your manual before you as well as your open Bible. We're going to consider the material printed on pages twenty-three, twenty-four and twenty-five of the course, What the Bible Teaches. This concerns lesson number seven, and you'll notice it's really a continuation of the subject that was under discussion the last time we were together, namely the new birth. You will remember that when we were last together, we noticed something about the imperatives of being born again. We noticed, first of all, what the new birth is not. Then we addressed ourselves to Answering the question, Why must a person be born again? That was lesson number six. And now today, continuing the same theme, we take another step. Not only why must I be born again, but today, how can I be born again? And furthermore, when? How can a person be born again? Nicodemus was the first to ask this question. Was he not? For in the third chapter of the Gospel of John, where the Lord Jesus insisted upon its necessity, saying, Except a man be born again, or born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God, Nicodemus, who was listening to the Lord Jesus, immediately said, How? How can a man be born again? And many have asked that question ever since. In John three five, the Lord elucidates, it a bit by saying, Verily, verily I say unto you, Except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Born first of water, and second the Spirit. How can a man be born again? Well, the lesson points out that there are three answers to this very important question. First by believing the Word of God, second by the indwelling of the Spirit of God, third, by faith in the substitutionary sacrifice of our Savior on the cross. Now let's take these three steps slowly. The Lord Jesus said we must be born of water. Now there are many very sincere and well-meaning people who interpret the Lord's words here to refer to baptism. But I'm sure that the more we get to know the New Testament and the more we observe or experience The less confidence we'll have in that identification. Our Lord uses the word water in the New Testament in a symbolic way. True water is sometimes water, H-T-O. But in the third chapter of the Gospel of John, verse five, we're convinced that the Lord was using the term water in a symbolic sense. He was using it as an emblem of the written word of God. Now sometimes water is used of the Spirit of God. Take, for example, the Lord's use of it in the next chapter. That's John chapter four and verse fourteen. Jesus said to the woman at the well, Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him, a well of water springing up into everlasting life. No one will contend that he meant literal water there. No, he was using the word water in John four, fourteen, as a symbol of the indwelling Holy Spirit, as that spring of living water. Now in John three, five, we're convinced that he was using the term water as a symbol, not so much of the Spirit of God, but of the Word of God. And is this not exactly substantiated by Peter's use of it? If we turn over to first Peter chapter one and verse twenty three, we see I think a confirmation of this. For in first Peter one twenty three we read, Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever. Certainly Peter interprets for us the usage of the word water. He says we're born again by the word of God. And in James one eighteen we have a further verification of this. For here we read, Of his own will, begat he us with the word of truth. You see, the believing of the word of God, the testimony that God has given, is one of the means by which the new life is received. Now the word is likened to seed. There is no life apart from seed in any area. There is no life apart from seed, and this is true not only in the physical and natural, but it true in the immaterial, in the spiritual as well. And here the Word of God is the seed by which the new life is communicated and imparted. But furthermore the Lord said, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit. So we have not only the necessity for us to believe the Word of God, but also that the Word has to be applied by the Spirit of God. And if the Word of God is the instrument of the new birth, The Spirit of God is the agent, and the agent, the Spirit, takes the word, the instrument, and communicates divine life to the soul. It is the Spirit that quickens it, the Lord Jesus said. And in a strange, mysterious way, the Spirit of God communicates the divine life to the believer who opens his heart to Jesus Christ, and believes the testimony that God has given concerning Christ, his person, and his glorious work upon the cross. So the new birth is affected by, one, believing what God says, that's faith, you know, and secondly, by the quickening power of the Holy Spirit of God. Soon as my all I ventured upon the atoning blood, the Holy Spirit entered, and I was born of God. But there's a third factor. And this is declared in John three, fourteen and fifteen, where we have our Lord Jesus Christ saying to Nicodemus, 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." Our Lord here used a well-known Old Testament illustration. Nicodemus being a ruler of the Jews, and a distinguished theologian would instantly recognize the story. Unless we are not so well informed, as was he, We'll turn back to Numbers twenty-one and read afresh the story. That's Numbers twenty-one and verse five. And the people spake against God and against Moses. Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, neither is there any water, and our soul loatheth this light bread. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people. and much of the people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against thee. Pray unto the Lord that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole. And it shall come to pass that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it shall live. Moses made a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld a serpent of brass, he lived." Now the story is very simple and very arresting. Notice it spells out, first of all, the fact of sin. There was murmuring and bitter complaining on the part of the people. They turned savagely against the God who had redeemed them and upon Moses his representative. This was serious sin. The sin was followed by condemnation, the visitation of judgment. The fiery serpents did their deadly work, injecting into these guilty Israelites their venom. And they were sick and dying all over the camp. Then in repentance they cried to God. They confessed their sin. And against this background of their repentance came God's remedy. the uplifted serpent of grass that reflected the sunlight towards which if a dying Israelite looked in obedience to the command of God, he lived instantly. A divine miracle was visited upon him, and he received a return of full health. Centuries later, our Lord and Savior, referring to this incident, said, 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. You see, if you and I must be born again, the Holy Savior must be lifted up upon the cross. It was only by his bearing the penalty that sin could be removed. And just as the dying Israelite looked with his physical eyes on a physical object and received instant physical life, So we acknowledge ourselves as having been bitten by the poisonous serpent of sin, and under condemnation and dying we may lift our spiritual eyes to a spiritual object and receive spiritual life. If we would be born again, then, we must believe God's Word. We must receive and open our hearts to the working of the Holy Spirit, and then look away to Calvary, see Jesus being made sin on our behalf, and say, Lord Jesus, knowing I am a sinner, and beyond all self-help, I trust thee as my Savior. I believe that you died for me upon that cross, and here and now I'll trust you as my own. That's what Jesus meant when he said, Whosoever believeth in him Christ, should not perish, but have eternal life. And then the great point, the second point in our lesson today is, when can a person be born again? It scarcely needs an answer. Here and now we may receive eternal life by looking away to the Lord Jesus and making him our own by faith. Well, take your exam now and and scan lesson eight in view of our next session together. And God will bless you. Half be not an astonition. In the will you let him in? that now this world obey. Bring your heart to widely open. Be defender while you so so Thank you.