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The Pilgrim Path (11-8-2020)

The Pilgrim Path---John 3: 3

Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN…

The fine preacher in the Logan County, Kentucky, revival of 1800---the Rev. James M’Gready, has intrigued and stirred me with his sermons. Here are some searching notes of his on the “new birth,” from his early revival endeavors from the third chapter of the Gospel of John. He wanted to get his hearers thinking about whether their hearts had been changed by the power of the Spirit of God:

---Has there been a transformation in you by the power of the Gospel? “…in regeneration, the Spirit of God does not take away these powers and affections of the soul but sets them right and puts them under proper control. The same love once so strongly attracted by the creature, is set UPON GOD.”

---“It is a SUPERNATURAL change. He that is born again is born of the Spirit. Great and natural changes may be wrought upon the creature by the assistance of divine revelation, and the common influences of the Spirit…None but the sanctifying Spirit, can form Christ in the soul.”

---“This change is entire. ‘If any man is in Christ---he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.’ All old things are passed away, every sin, idol, lust…receives a wound---which will issue in their inevitable death…”

---“This change is an IMPERFECT change. Although every part is renewed, yet none is perfectly changed…Although in regeneration, there is a heavenly light let into the mind, some darkness still remains; although the will is renewed, some small inclination to sin continues; and it will be so--- until that which in part is done away, and the light of glory comes…”

---“This change is a LASTING change. ‘whoever is born of God, his seed remaineth in him.’ The new life received in regeneration shall NEVER be lost…”

---Remember: “Regeneration is absolutely necessary to qualify you for the performance of those things which are truly good and pleasing in the sight of God.”

---“If you are not born again, all your reformations and apparent changes from profanity to morality, or from morality to a discharge of the outward duties of religion, are vain, and worse than in vain---WHY? Because you are unconverted and perform no duty from a principle of love to God, or with a design to promote His Glory.”

---“If you are not born again, you can never hold communion with God. It is a characteristic of the children of God, that they ENJOY communion with him and have some sweet foretastes of that felicity which awaits them beyond death…But unconverted sinners can have no communion with God, because they are his enemies…”

---“If you are not born again you are ‘absolutely unfit’ for heaven and that for several reason: God is essentially Holy and stands at a distances from all moral evil…Secondly, the unregenerate sinner would NOT relish the company of heaven---the occupations ---or the enjoyments of the kingdom of God…tell me, Oh ungodly sinner, what pleasure you would find in such a heaven as this? What satisfaction could you have in beholding the excellency of a Being whom you hate with all your heart? Would perfect holiness afford you any felicity if you did not desire it? You wish to be happy, and are anxious to go to heaven, but a Muslim Paradise ---a heaven of carnal pleasures, and a fleshly gratification would suit your taste much better, than the heaven which the renewed soul hungers and thirsts for, and longs to enjoy. Now, if you would examine your hearts, conscience would tell many of you that such is the case…Think how burdensome and disagreeable heaven would be, if you were taken there THIS MOMENT. Rather than spend an eternity in company so opposite to your nature and be engaged in employments so unpleasant to your vitiated minds, you would leap over the battlements of heaven down to the burning furnace of hell. Now, sinner---are you not convinced that you must be ‘born again,’ to be qualified to enjoy true happiness?”

---“As long as you continue in your unregenerate state---You are under the curse of God…”

---“If you are born again, you habitually long to be prepared for glory---to be fitted for dwelling forever in your Father’s House, because neither sin nor any evil is there, but perfection in holiness, and conformity to God…O consider what infinite obligations you are under to God, and to His Son Jesus Christ, who groaned and bled and died for your salvation. Who has sent the Spirit, the third person in the adorable Trinity, to bow your hard hearts and obstinate wills, to the astonishing plan of free grace. O let your holy, self-denying lives evidence to the world that you love your heavenly Father, and delight in his law…”

---"O---unconverted sinners! Cry to God day and night to grant you the enlightening influences of His Spirit, to discover to you your lost and perishing condition, and to cut you off from every other refuge but Christ.”

---“Escape for your lives to Jesus Christ, who stands with open arms ready to receive you, in whom you will find complete and everlasting salvation. He will clothe you in the white robe of his righteousness, and cleanse you from all the filth and pollution of sin. He will give you eternal life in the immediate vision and full fruition of the everlasting God. Eternal life, sinners, is this day offered you; and the LORD Jesus Christ, who purchased it with his own blood, would with pleasure bestow it upon you. Nothing separates between your souls and Christ, but unbelief and your own unwillingness: for He has given the strongest possible proof of His willingness to receive guilty sinners like you, IF they would come to Him. IF unwilling to save you---would He have left the bosom of His Father and all the glories of His kingdom, veil His godhead in the flesh, suffer, bleed, and die, that He might open a way of escape from eternal wrath?”

---"How free and extensive are the invitations of the Gospel!---Fly to Jesus and cast yourselves at His feet of sovereign mercy and accept of salvation. The LORD assures you a hearty WELCOME…”

HYMN

Jesus My Shepherd is; ‘twas he that loved my soul,

‘Twas he that washed me in his blood, ‘twas he that made me whole;

‘Twas he that sought the lost, that found the wondering sheep,

‘Twas he that brought me to the fold, ‘tis he that still doth keep.

Horatius Bonar, 1843

Grace and Peace in Jesus, the Only Redeemer of broken and wretched souls, Pastor Jason