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“Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye
must be born again” (John 3:7), or, as the
margin has it. doubtless more correctly,
“born from above.’
✓"V UT of this text and the context come
JSjLi at least five great things: A great possi
bility. A great mystery. A great phil
osophy. A great necessity, and a great
simplicity.
A Great Possibility.
The great possibility is that anyone may be
born from above. Such a birth is not confined
to the spiritual world. When the caterpillar
turns into the butterfly there is a birth from
above. It rises into a higher realm. When
the seed drops into the earth and the vital force
in it takes up the mineral, there is a birth from
above. That mineral is lifted into the vegeta
ble kingdom. When the ox eats the vegetable,
there is another birth from above, for the vege
table had been lifted into the animal kingdom,
and when man eats the ox and it becomes part
of his brain, fibre and nerve, there is another
birth from above, from the lower into the high
er animal kingdom, and when the Spirit of God
touches the soul and causes repentance and
faith with the upward look, there is a birth
from above, a lifting into the higher spiritual
realm one who has heretofore lived in the lower
physical, mental and moral merely. There is
such a thing, I am sorry to say, as a birth from
beneath. There is a going down in the physi,
cal, moral and spiritual scale. I saw a man,
young, vigorous, strong, bright eye, clear brain,
standing side by side with his bride as the
pastor pronounced them husband and wife.
Sober he was, industrious he was, intellectual
he was, prosperous and happy he was. With
in less than 15 years afterwards I saw that man
standing on the porch of a dilapidated shanty
of a building. Unkempt he was, eyes bleared
they were, nervous, a-trembling, the wife with
her father, the children with their friends, and
he, a confirmed, disgraced and apparently hope
less drunkard. There had been a birth from
beneath, a force that dragged that man down
into the lower realm. And we see that going
on about us oh, so frequently. And sometimes
there is a process like that in the intellectual
as well as in the scientific world. There comes
a wave of bad literature, the books are bad.
The magazines are tinged with evil, the press
catches the contagion, and we have a sort of
epidemic of sin. I have been meditating lately
as T have read one or two books along that
line, of the birth from beneath that really
came to the scientific world a generation ago.
The indication is that there is now a re-action,
a prospect of a birth from above. The great
scientist, Charles Darwin began life as a Chris
tian in faith, intellectually at least. He believ
ed the Bible and quoted it with authority. He
prayed. He did not hesitate to say that there
was a God, and that God had manifested Him
self in Jesus Christ. He even thought of the
ministry. He gave himself to scientific study.
Very carefully, very studiously. He made
many very important discoveries, but he never
drifted from the fact that there may be a God.
But the scientific philosophers about him:
Huxley, Spencer, Haeckel,, interpreted his
THE GOLDEN AGE FOR WEEK OF OCT. 23
“YE MUST BE BORN AGAIN”
A Sermon by Dr. A. C. DIXON, Metropolitan Tabernacle, London
teaching without God, and there was born an
Agnostic Movement that refused to acknowl
edge God. The materialist movement has gone
through our colleges and churches and even
got into our Sunday schools. And it caught
Mr. Darwin in its under-tow. For as he grew
older he was frank enough to confess that
he had lost all taste for painting, poetry, music
and religion. And his son, in his biography,
tells us that he had a taste for exciting novels.
And the whole scientific world was more or less
caught in this under-tow. I am thankful to
say that there is a tendency upward now. I
am thankful to God that the young men and
women of our colleges and the great mass of
people who think are looking upward, and be
ginning to recognize that back of everything
there is a God at work and the God of nature
as well as the God of grace is Jesus Christ our
Lord.
Except a man be born from above he can
not see the kingdom of God. lam quite sure
that phrase is a Hebreism which means, “born
of the cleansing power of the Spirit.” “Ex
cept a man be born of the cleansing power of
cannot have a vision of God as King at all. Ex
cept a man be born of the clenasing power of
the Spirit he cannot enter into that kingdom,
become a subject of that kingdom, be ruled
by that kingdom, advance the interest of that
kingdom. There is first the vision of the king
dom, and having an experience which makes
you a very part of the kingdom. I say then
that the great possibility is that any soul can
get this vision and this experience. But a
greater possibility is that a man like Nico
demus can get it; that a religious man, brim
ful of religious spirit, one of the officers in the
synagogue, saying long prayers, doing relig
ious things, every seventh day at least; a Phar
isee, careful of the law; and not only a relig
ious man, but a moral man, a decent sort of
fellow; not only a religious and moral, but a
cultured man; every indication that he was a
man of the school, a man of education, a man
of refinement; not only religious, moral, cul
tured, but influential; a ruler of the Jews, a
member of the Court; the highest in the land—
I say that the wonderful possibility is that a
man like that can be lifted to a higher realm
still.
The Great Mystery.
“Born from above.” But how? That is
what puzzled Nicodemus. How shall I begin
life again? Shall I go back to my mother’s
arms? Oh, some of us would like to do that.
We would be so glad to wipe out the past and
begin with the babyhood, the lullaby, and the
prayer at mother’s knee. But that is not it.
It is not being born again. It is being born
from above. But how? The how of every
birth is mysterious, the physical as well as
the spiritual. The birth of the butterfly from
the caterpillar is juslt as mysterious. The
birth from the seed into the stalk and the ear
and the full corn is just as mysterious. Life
is invisible, we cannot trace it, but we are
alive in the mystery.
A Great Philosophy.
How can we explain the great possibility
and the great mystery of the new birth ? You
have the philosophy of it in John 3:16. “For,”
don’t leave that out. We drop it usually, but
it gives us the philosophy of the new birth.
“For God so loved.” That is the reason it
is possible. That is the reason it is mysterious.
God so loved us he does the work himself.
There is no power that can help God in pro
ducing the new birth. That is his work.
The Great Necessity.
“Marvel not that ye must be born again.”
Marvel at the possibility. Marvel at the mys
tery. Marvel even at the philosophy; at God’s
love in sending Christ to die for us, and at
Christ’s love in dying. It is so infinitely great
that we cannot comprehend it. But do not
marvel at the necessity. “Ye must be.” If
you do not get that vision of God in his king
dom you will never enter in as a subject. If
you are not lifted from the lower to the higher
you will not move along the higher plane
through time and eternity.
In that discussion of the question “What
is Hell?” I noticed one of the writers told us
he thinks perhaps hell and heaven may be the
same place after all. The same place! He
forgot just one scripture: “There is a gulf
fixed.” “Depart from me, ye cursed, into
everlasting fire.” He forgot that. But the
principle he was thinking about is worth re
membering, for he says, hell would be heaven
to a man in the kingdom of God with Christ
enthroned, and heaven itself would be hell to
a man self-enthroned and sin-mastered and
Jesus Christ reigning about him in all his
glory. Marvel not that ye must be or you will
not be prepared for heaven. “Ye must be born
again, ’ ’ or you will have to live and die on the
lower plane of the flesh and self and sin. Let
there be no wonder at the necessity. It is
just as plain as the sun at noonday.
The Great Simplicity.
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wil
derness.” Notice how Jesus came to the level
of Nicodemus. A Jewish Ruler, expert in Bib
lical knowledge. He knows every incident in
Israelitish history, if he doesn’t know every
word of the Old Testament, and the pointings
of the passages, and the middle word, the num
ber of words, the number of letters and the
number of sentences. There is no doubt about
his knowledge. And he meets him on the plains
of that knowledge that he may lift him up
to the higher. You remember that scene in
the wilderness when the Israelites were bitten
by fiery serpents and were dying by thousands.
God said to Moses. Make a piece of brass in the
shape of a serpent, place it on a pole in the
midst of the camp and whosoever looks at
that shall be lifted into health, shall be born
from above, shall be lifted out of the region
of poison and taken into the region of health
and joy. Your part is simple as looking. Your
pait gets no credit to you. God does the work
when you look. Oh friend cease to philoso
phize. Cease to talk of the mystery, as you did
when you ate breakfast or luncheon today.
You were hungry and ate what you needed
and all the philosophers on earth could not ex
plain how the bread gave strength, how the
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