The hall was crowded, although it was one of the largest in the town a fashionable seaside resort for a combined mission had been convened by most of the evangelical churches in the place, and a number of the leading clergy and ministers were on the platform, surrounding the preacher, a missionary from Spain. Simply and earnestly he told of man’s ruin and God’s salvation, and urged upon his hearers the solemn fact declared by the Lord Jesus to Nicodemus: “YE MUST BE BORN AGAIN!”
“Which of you in this audience can tell what it is to be born again?” he queried. A solemn silence filled the hall, and none answered. It may be that the question, uttered in the power of the Holy Spirit, was searching the consciences of many there, and causing them to ask themselves, what I trust this narrative may cause you to ask yourself, my reader, “Have I been born again?”
Then in the silence and the stillness a working man rose up. He was a stranger to all there, for he had not long been in the town. In simple words but with deep emotion, he told how he had been born again. He told of his past life, as a drunkard and a wife-beater, of depths of sin and degradation; he told how his guilt had been brought home to him as he listened to the account of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, and realized that the Holy One of God had been made sin for him guilty wretch as he was in order that he might become the righteousness of God in Him. He told how as soon as he rested by faith on that finished work, and asked for mercy for Jesus’ sake, the burden was gone the sense of guilt vanished, and he knew he was pardoned and accepted in Christ. Nay more, he was a new creature. The desire for drink, the love of the pleasures of sin vanished, and joy such as he had never known before filled his heart. He could look up to a Saviour God as His Father; he knew himself “accepted in the Beloved,” loved with the same love as Christ Himself, and that shortly he would be with Him and like Him forever.
He sat down, and presently the service closed, and he left the building.
As he walked along the Parade on his way home, quick footsteps were heard behind him and a hand was laid on his arm. He turned. The tall, well-knit form of one of the clergymen who had been sitting on the platform by the preacher, stood beside him.
“You have just been to the meeting!” he said.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Did you see me there?”
“I did, Sir.”
“Well, I am ashamed to have been there.”
“Why so, Sir?”
“Because I cannot say what you can. I cannot say that I have been born again, and that a great change has come over me.”
“Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ, Sir?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Do you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, Sir?”
“Oh yes, that I do.”
“Do you enjoy the Lord Jesus Christ, Sir?”
There was no answer, so after a few moments, he was asked: “Are you converted, Sir?”
“Yes, I believe I am converted.”
“When were you converted, Sir?”
“I don’t know. I can never remember the time when I did not believe in the Lord Jesus. I was brought up in a Christian home, by Christian parents, and taught the gospel from my infancy. But I cannot say what you can.”
“Do you see that cripple, Sir? Ask him how he felt when he lost his limb, and to describe the amputation. He will tell you he cannot he lost it in infancy, and remembers nothing about it. But he has lost it. Ask another, and he will tell you all about it, he remembers it too well. So probably you were born again when a little child, and do not remember it; but if you are resting on the finished work of the Lord Jesus, you have been born again.”
“Oh, thank you. I never saw it in that light, and I thank you warmly,” was the clergyman’s gracious rejoinder, as his heart turned from its inward search for a date, and a change, and a wonderful experience, to rest on a work wrought for (not in) him, and on the Saviour Who not only did, but finished, that work.
“Ye must be born again,” dear reader. “Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3-73Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. 4Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? 5Jesus 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. 6That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. (John 3:3‑7)). But how? By baptism? The Church may say so; the word of God does not; but declares: “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them which believe on his name; which were born... of God.”
That is new birth receiving Christ; believing on His name. And the means of it? “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever” (I Peter i. 23). “Of His own will begat he us with the word of truth” ( James 1:1818Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. (James 1:18)). Paul speaks of the “washing of water by the word” (Eph. 5:2626That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, (Ephesians 5:26)); Peter and James, as quoted above, declare it is by “the word” a soul is born again a threefold witness to the meaning of the Lord’s word, “born of water.” It is not baptism, but the action of the word of God in the power of the Spirit, leading the soul to Christ.
Reader, have you received Him? Have you “believed in His name?” Then you have been born again, and you have everlasting life. (John 3:15, 16; 6:4715That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:15‑16)
47Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. (John 6:47)).
T.