Grace Bible Church
Pastor Teacher
Robert R. McLaughlin
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
When water is used it doesn’t always refer to baptism for there are seven baptisms in the word of God, four which are dry and three which are wet.
Like Nicodemus, most communicators and teachers are blind concerning what God’s word, in the original language, has to say.
1. The point is that without some knowledge of Hebrew and Greek, you cannot teach those who look to you for help as to the original language of scripture.
2. Without some knowledge of Hebrew and Greek, you cannot appreciate the critical discussions relating to the books of the Old and New Testaments.
3. Without some knowledge of Hebrew and Greek, you cannot be certain that you are presenting the correct teaching of that text.
4. Without some knowledge of Hebrew and Greek, you cannot be an independent student or a reliable interpreter of the Word of God.
Nicodemus was a man who was trying to go on before he started.
The type of person who has been brought up in a religious atmosphere.
Our Lord makes it crystal clear in John 3:3 to the religious person that unless a man be born again he cannot even SEE the kingdom of God, let alone ENTER into it!
You can’t begin to grow and discover what is necessary to stimulate growth and development unless the seed of life has been planted within you.
1PE 1:23 for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, {that is,} through the living and abiding word of God.
1JO 3:9 No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
There is the danger of trying to apply Christian truth before there is any Christian life.
Martin Luther – he came to that critical understanding that he had been taught wrongly and that “the just shall live by faith”.
His great problem was that of justification, he thought it was sanctification.
He was concentrating on how to live holier but he had never experienced salvation and the freedom of being justified in the eyes of God.
He thought his infant baptism had given him new life, etc. 1. Religion which basis our justification on our sanctification. 2. The other basis our sanctification based upon our justification.
We are justified because of the way we live which says we have been justified on the basis of our sanctification or making decisions based upon being sanctified or set apart for God which is nothing more than works.
2. The other basis our sanctification based upon our justification. A contract was put out on his life and after months of living in fear and hiding for his life, he finally got sick of the whole thing and wrote that very famous hymn, “A mighty fortress is our God.”
A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing; our helper he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe; his craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate, on earth is not his equal.
Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing, were not the right man on our side, the man of God’s own choosing. Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is he;
Lord Sabaoth, his name, from age to age the same, and he must win the battle.
And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God hath willed his truth to triumph through us.
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him; his rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure; one little word shall fell him.
That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth; the Spirit and the gifts are ours, thru him who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also; the body they may kill; God’s truth abideth still; his kingdom is forever.
HEB 10:38 But My righteous one shall live by faith; And if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him.
There is a danger in thinking of Christianity in terms of ideas which we are to apply rather than in terms of life.
Christianity is a new birth. Christianity is a new life.
It is not an informed mind but a transformed mind.
ROM 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
COL 3:2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.
JOH 3:6 “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
The Christian life is not something we do but something which is done to us, JOH 3:7-8.
You cannot give birth to yourself. This is something that happens to you.
We see the effects and the results but we don’t understand it.
So is everyone who is born of the Spirit, it’s the action or the life of God in the souls of men.
You can’t build a building without a foundation, it will collapse.
You can’t grow until you are born, you can’t run the race until you enter the race.
Our first birth provided us with a body of flesh and blood and put us into Adam’s family but in order to enter into the family of God we need to be born of the Spirit.
JOH 3:6 “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
It may be refined flesh, beautiful flesh, religious flesh, but it is still flesh!
One which is carnal (of the flesh) and one which is spiritual (of the Spirit).
GAL 5:17 For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that t you please.
ROM 7:12 So then, did the Law or the commands from God which are holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous as good.
ROM 7:13 Actually, did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it never be!
Rather it was sin or the sin nature, in order that it might be shown to be the sin nature by effecting my death [that is by revealing his spiritual death through that which is good, that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
Because you see religion is Satanic.
Religion has false doctrine, called doctrine of demons, 1TI 4:1.
Religion has a devil’s communion table, 1CO 10:19-20.
Religion has another gospel, GAL 1:6.
Religion has another Jesus, 2CO 11:4.
Religion has another Spirit, 2CO 11:4.
Religion is called “whitewashed tombstones”, beautiful on the outside but inside full of dead-men’s bones.
Our Lord’s words in JOH 3:7 “Do not marvel” suggest the reaction of Nicodemus. Nicodemus was totally shocked in spite of all his human accomplishments.
The Holy Spirit came to indwell inside of you, you didn’t feel it or see it either.
The wind cannot be seen, only the effects are visible.
However, you do not know how the wind got there or where it’s going. So it is with the spiritual birth.
No man has ascended up to heaven, simply means that all Old Testament saints were in Abraham’s bosom and none had ascended into heaven as of yet.
Abraham’s bosom is a reference to paradise which was located in the middle of the earth before Christ ascended into heaven.
He meant that true life could only come out of death.
He meant that in order for a new creation to begin the old creation must be destroyed.
Our Lord referred to His sacrificial death as a lifting up because the Jews were looking for a Messiah who should be lifted up.
It spoke of Christ being lifted up on the cross in order that He might save, through the look of faith, those who were dying from sin.
The serpent was an appropriate figure of that deadly and destructive power, sin.
In GEN 3:15, the serpents’ seed are said to be unregenerate sinners.
There was no deliverance therefore for the Jews unless God provided one.
Why didn’t Moses use one of the actual serpents and spike a fiery serpent on the pole?
It would have pictured God’s judgment on the sinner himself and worse still, it would have misrepresented our sinless substitute, TLJC.
HEB 7:26, For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens.
The type chosen was in the likeness of a serpent, it wasn’t an actual serpent, but a piece of brass made like one.
ROM 8:3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God {did:} sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and {as an offering} for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,
HEB 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as {we are, yet} without sin.
The brazen serpent foreshadows Christ only as He was lifted up on the cross.
In the scriptures brass symbolizes divine judgment. The brazen altar illustrates this truth for on it the sacrificial animals were slain.
Upon the brazen altar descended the consuming fire from heaven.
REV 1:15 and His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been caused to glow in a furnace,
JOH 3:14 “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;
Brass is harder than iron, or silver, or gold, it told, then, of Christ’s mighty strength. He was able to endure the awful judgments which fell upon Him, a mere creature, though sinless would have been utterly consumed.