Pictures of Evangelism - Birth

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 4:14-15

"I do not write these things to shame you but to admonish you as my beloved children. For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel."

Let's consider what it means to be a spiritual father. Our Lord said to his disciples, "Call no man on earth your father." What he means by that is let no other believer on earth take the place of God. There are some Christians who want to be God in everybody's life. Our Lord warns us against that. However, there's a sense in which each of us has a spiritual father on earth—someone who through the gospel has begotten us. And this is what we want to talk about from three different aspects.

Turning to John 3, we ask: Why did Jesus use birth as a picture of salvation? It's really unfortunate that the term "new birth" or "born again" has become so eroded. I picked up a magazine on a flight somewhere and here was an article on the "born again theater" in New York. One of the house magazines featured "how to have a born again basement." So now the term "born again" has been so abused that it is confused, and we're in difficulty with that.

But it's a good term. John 3, when our Lord was talking with Nicodemus, he made the statement, "You must be born again"—that is, born from above. Now, there are many different pictures of salvation in our Lord's preaching, but this one seems to have captured the interest and the attention of so many people.

Let's ask ourselves the question: Why did the Lord Jesus use birth as a picture of salvation? I don't begin to attempt to answer that question from our Lord's point of view—I don't know all the reasons he had in mind. But I want to suggest six or seven of them to you.

1. Birth is a Universal Experience

When our Lord talks about finding a lost sheep, he loses me. I've never found a lost sheep. I've never seen a sheep till I was seven or eight years old. When you're born and raised in the city, you don't see these things.

He talks about a boy who leaves home and turns his back on his parents. I wasn't allowed to cross the street. So that somewhat eludes me.

Our Lord talks about salvation as resurrection from the dead. I've never seen anybody raised from the dead.

Now all these images are true, but they don't quite come home to me. But this one does. Everybody has experienced birth. The only way to get here.

Now, that says to me that the new birth is universally needed, and that the new birth ought to be universally offered.

If you were asked to give one gift that everybody in the world needed, what would you give? When anniversaries and birthdays come around, I never know what to give. My brother has everything—a lot of things he doesn't need. Quite frankly, my wife doesn't like doodads.

What would you give to everybody in the world? You couldn't give them food—all people don't eat the same kind of food. Couldn't give them money—some of them don't need it. Couldn't give them a book because sometimes they can't read.

There's only one gift that could be given to a whole world, and that's eternal life. God picked the right gift.

2. Birth Involves Life

You can't be born without life.

Many years ago, there was a science professor in Scotland whose name was Henry Drummond. He's known today as the author of The Greatest Thing in the World—probably the worst commentary on 1 Corinthians 13 ever written. A great devotional book, terrible commentary.

Henry Drummond had quite a ministry of evangelism until he became so liberal that he didn't have much of a message. He used to work with D.L. Moody—he was one of D.L. Moody's personal workers.

Henry Drummond used to picture it like this. He said, "I'm a scientist. And I know as a scientist, there are various kingdoms in this world. There's a mineral kingdom, and a vegetable kingdom, and an animal kingdom, and a human kingdom, and Jesus tells me—and I believe it—there's a divine kingdom."

And he said, "As a scientist, I know that each kingdom can reach down and pull the other kingdom up. The roots of the grass go down into the mineral kingdom and turn mineral into vegetable. The cow comes along and eats the grass and turns vegetable into animal. The butcher comes along and butchers the cow, and the man comes along and buys the hamburger—or the cheeseburger, depending on whether you're a student or a faculty member. The student would buy the cheeseburger, obviously."

And he turns animal into human. And God comes along and reaches down by sending his Son, and he can transform the human into the divine and impart the new life.

Birth involves life. The word "life" is used 36 times in the Gospel of John. In his great commentary on this gospel, Campbell Morgan has pointed out a very interesting fact. He says if we're going to have life, we have to have light. In order to sustain life, we have to have breath and water and food. Now, you can go without food a lot longer than you can go without water. You can go without water a lot longer than you can go without breath.

In the Gospel of John in chapter 1, it says, "In him was life, and the life was the light of man." Life comes from light.

3. Birth Involves Two Parents

Many years ago, when I was ordained, the church where I was ordained gave me a set of commentaries—they felt I needed it. There was a man in that church who was a great Bible teacher. He was a layman, but oh, he could teach the word of God. In fact, after I was converted as a teenager, my follow-up course was to sit in his living room and listen to him teach the book of Hebrews. Now today if you turn new Christians loose on the book of Hebrews, they'd probably regurgitate and go someplace else.

I said to him, "What is the water in John 3?" He says, "Anything but baptism. Anything but baptism."

There are those who tell us the water there is the word. I'm not sure I'll argue with them. There are places in the Bible where water is compared to the word and vice versa. There are some who make it the Holy Spirit, translating it "even born of water, even the Spirit." I'm not so sure. I won't argue or start a new denomination.

But I'm not so sure that Nicodemus would have understood that symbolism as clearly as we do today. Now, he could have from Isaiah or other passages.

I have a suspicion—which I won't argue about—that "born of water" is referring to what Nicodemus had talked about in verse 4, the physical birth. "How can a man be born again a second time? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?"

And Jesus said, "You've got to be born of water"—which I think means physical birth—"and the Spirit"—which means spiritual birth. Because our Lord goes on to say in verse 6, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh"—water—"that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit." And always will be.

But that's not the important thing now. We know very clearly from the word of God that we are born of the Spirit of God, and we're born by the word of God.

1 Peter 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." Verse 25: "And this is the word which was preached unto you."

So we're born of the Spirit of God, who takes the word of God. Which says to me: there can be no true evangelism apart from the word of God and the Spirit of God.

I don't know who really said it to begin with. I like to trace down these quotations—it's amazing where people think they come from. I heard Dr. Tozer say it; Jess Moody has said it. It may have come from some great Puritan. But I don't know.

But I remember when I heard Mr. Tozer say it, it shook me. He said, "If God were to take the Holy Spirit out of this world, most of what we are doing would go right on, and nobody would know the difference."

There's a great deal of so-called evangelism that is strictly soulish. It is the charisma of personality. There is personal work which is not evangelism—it's salesmanship.

4. Birth Involves a Future

A baby has no past. I've never seen a doctor, I've never seen a policeman waiting in the O.B. ward to arrest a baby. You can kill them before they're born, but you can't arrest them after they're born. A baby is born with a future.

Peter had this in mind in 1 Peter 1:3. He says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Not a dead hope. There are lots of dead hopes in the world today. A living hope.

Birth involves a future. The unsaved person has no future. Nothing to look forward to. In fact, most of the people we see are doing their very best not to think about the past, not to think about the future, and somehow get some fun out of today.

When I was pastoring in Chicago, and I'd walk down the streets, you'd see people with hopelessness written all over their faces. And so they do everything they can in the city of Chicago to do away with this. They buy entertainment—you can buy all kinds of entertainment. I think there are drugstores where you can buy sleep. You can't buy peace—you can buy sleep. You can't buy joy—you can buy fun.

And so most of the people I meet are living on substitutes. And you can live on substitutes only so long. It catches up with you. And this is why we have such things as suicide. It's tragic.

Birth involves a future.

5. Birth is Final

You're not likely to be unborn. Disobedient, perhaps, but not unborn. You're not likely to be unborn.

My son is not unborn. My son's wife is not unborn. We're expecting number one, which means we're expecting to be grandparents. We have some friends—they just had number two, and he was present when the birth took place, and he fainted right on the spot, just collapsed.

Birth involves a future. Birth is final. You're not likely to be unborn. Disobedient, perhaps, but not unborn.

6. Birth Involves Nature

An eagle has an eagle's nature—it's born an eagle. A dog has a dog's nature—it's born a dog. If I got home Friday afternoon and my cat jumped up and barked, I'd be afraid. Because cats act like cats and dogs act like dogs. And nature is determined by birth.

My old nature—and whatever semantic problems you want to get into on that—but this thing I was born with that wants to drag me down came by my first birth. And when there was a second birth, a new nature was imparted, being partakers of the divine nature by the word of God. This nature is different.

And birth determines nature.

Nature determines appetite. I can feed my cat what I can't feed your guppies. And vice versa.

Nature determines environment. An eagle, because it has an eagle's nature, is very happy up there in the clouds. A porpoise, because it has a porpoise's nature, is very happy in the seas. If you reverse those two, you'd have death.

Nature determines associations. Sheep flock together. Lions come in prides. Buffalo come in herds. Fish come in schools. Christians like to be together.

Nature determines danger. There are some germs that are dangerous to me—they're not dangerous to my cat.

Nature determines destiny. The unsaved person has no future. What God builds in, what God gives us, is the plan for our future. But birth determines destiny.

Birth is final. You're not likely to be unborn. Disobedient, perhaps, but not unborn.

This sermon is Part 2 of Dr. Wiersbe's "Pictures of Evangelism" series, delivered at Grace College in Winona Lake, IN in 1981.