Regeneration

I was twenty years old before I ever heard a sermon on regeneration. I was always told to be good, but 3tou might as well tell a black man to be a white man as to tell him to be good without telling him how. You might tell a slave to be free, but that would not make him free, if you didn’t help him. Christ not onllr tells us to be free, but He frees us. In the third chapter of Genesis we read how man lost life. In the third chapter of John we find how he gets it back again.

We are a bad lot, the whole of us, by nature. It is astonishing how the devil does blind us and makes us think we are so naturally good.

Suppose that your sins could all be stamped on your forehead, do you not think there would be a stampede? Take the best man there is here, the natural man that nevei has been born from above, never has been born of the Spirit, and suppose that everything in his heart could be brought to light. Suppose a photographer could take a photograph of the heart, do you think they would find anyone who would be willing to have such a photograph taken? Ladies crimp their hair and put on their best clothes; and men dress up and go to the barber’s to get shaved, and then they go and have their pictures taken; and if the photographer flatters them and makes them look ten years younger, they say, “You are the first man to do me justice,” and they order ten dozen photographs and send them to all their friends. That isn’t a real photograph. Suppose he took a photograph of your heart would you send those around? Not much; you would break the plate and abuse the artist. Don’t talk to me about people being naturally good and angelic. We are naturally bad, the whole of us. The first man born of woman was a murderer. Sin leaped into the world full grown, and the whole race has been bad all the way down. Man is naturally bad.

Man has lost the image of God. Take just one description that Christ gives of the human heart: “Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies; these are the things which defile the man.” Now, I want to ask you how in the world can you get a pure stream when you have such an impure fountain? The trouble with people is that they are tnTing to make that stream good while the fountain is bad. It isn’t patching up the old man that is needed, but it is hewing down that tree and putting a new graft in. It is an entire change — a new creation.

I have heard of reform, reform, until I am tired and sick of the whole thing. It is regeneration by the power of the Holy Ghost that we need. It isn’t this trying to make men believe that they have just come a little short of the glory of God, and if they just apply a little whitewash on the outside, they will be all right. You may whitewash a pest-house but it will be a pest-house still.

I heard an Englishman tell of a man who bought a farm. There was a well on the farm, and they told him there was poison in the well. He said, “AH right, I will fix it,” and went and painted the pump, thinking he was going to make the well all right by painting the pump. There are a lot of people who think they are going to make the well all right by painting the pump. What you want is to go to the source. Make the fountain good, and the stream will be good. Let the heart be right, and the life will be right, the hand will be right, the foot will be right. The seat of trouble is the heart, and what man needs is a new heart, a new creation.

The new birth isn’t good resolutions, or good intentions, or turning over a new leaf, or making promises, or making vows. That isn’t the new birth at all.

Perhaps some of you say, “What is it?”

Well, listen: “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not; but as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the Mesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

When I was born of my mother, I got a nature from my mother, and I got a life from her; but in Boston seventeen years afterward, 1 was born from above; I got life from God; a new life, distinct and separate from the natural life. I got a life that is as everlasting as God’s life; a life that there is no end to; eternal life. How did I get it? By receiving the Word of God into my heart. Christ says, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” There is life m 1 lis word. You take the Word of God into your heart, and there is the germ, there is the life. If 1 should take my watch and plant it, 1 wouldn’t get any little watches, would I? Why? Because the- germ of life isn’t there. If I should plant a bushel of gravel, I wouldn’t get any more gravel, would I? But let me plant a bushel of corn at the proper time, let me get the seed and put it into the ground in the month of May, and let the dews of heaven come upon the land, and the rain and the sun, and out of the death of that corn will come a new life. “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.” Then the Bible speaks, in another place, of “the incorruptible seed, which is the Word of God.”

Culture is all right in its place, but to talk about culture before a man is born. of God, before he has received this incorruptible seed into his heart, is the height of madness. Suppose I commence the first day of May- and plow an acre of groundcrosswise, and the next day 1 plow it lengthwise, and every day in the week except Sunday 1 plow that acre of land. I begin the first day of May and plow all through May and June and July. Once in a while I put a cultivator in and cultivate it, and I harrow it, and brush it, and roll it. I have been harrowing, brushing, rolling and cultivating for months, and you come along and say:

“Moody, what are you doing?”

“Doing! I am cultivating this acre of land.”

“Well, 1 should say so! I was around here last May, and you were plowing that acre of land. Been at it ever since?”

“Yes.”

“What are you going to put in it?”

“Well, I am not going to put anything in it, but I believe in a high state of culture.”

You would say I was a first-class lunatic! But that is what is going on all the while in spiritual things.

Put the seed in, and then pray God that the dew of heaven may rest upon it, and you will have some results. There isn’t a sower that goes forth and sows that kind of seed, but there are results.

To become a partaker of the divine nature is the greatest blessing that can come to any man this side of heaven. God has been very, very good to me. 1 can’t tell you how good He has been these forty odd years. It has just been blessing upon blessing. He has just piled them up, oh, so high! I can’t begin to tell you the goodness of God. But there is one blessing that just towers high above them all. You go to Washington and you will find there is one monument high above everything else — George Washington’s monument. And there is one blessing that came to me one night — I remember the night — it was in a shoe store in Boston. I never go to Boston that I don’t go around and take a look at that place where God met me and God imparted to me a new nature. Old things passed away that night; a new life dawned upon me; and that is the greatest blessing that has ever come to me this side of heaven. I got God’s nature, a new nature, distinct and separate from the old nature. All the infidels that I have had come to me during these forty years and try to take it out of me, they might as well try to move Gibraltar. Don’t I know there came a marvelous change that night that has transformed my life? 1 would doubt my existence as quick as I would doubt that fact. If you are not sure that you have become a partaker of the divine nature don’t eat, drink or sleep until you get that new nature.

And when you get that new nature, it is easy to serve God. His yoke is easy, His burden is light. It is a joy and delight. God isn’t a hard master.

Oh, man, woman, you may be deceived about ten thousand things, but do not be deceived on this one thing! Make sure you have the divine nature, that you have been born from above, that you have been born of God, that you have a life that has come from God distinct and separate from the natural life, the carnal life; a new life, a new creation.

In India the swan is considered a sacred bird. They have a legend there that one day an old crane was out on the beach looking for snails, and down came a big white swan. The crane stretched out its great long neck, and said to the swan:

“Where do you come from?”

The swan said he came down from heaven.

“Heaven!” said the crane, “I never heard of that place. Is it far away?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Is it a good country?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Is it better than this?”

“Oh, far better”; and the swan went on expatiating about heaven, about its lakes and its rivers and its fountains and its climate.

The old crane stood there listening, and when the swan got through, said:

“Have they any snails there?”

The swan drew itself up and said, “No, vile things! They wouldn’t have them in heaven.”

“Well, then,” said the crane, “you can have your heaven. I don’t want it, I want snails.”

Don’t you see a mighty truth wrapped up in that legend? I have had mothers come to me and say, “Mr. Moody, isn’t it strange that my boy doesn’t like spiritual things? Isn’t it strange that he would rather have low earthly things than spiritual things?” Strange? No! The natural man likes natural things, of course. The worldly man likes worldly things. Why shouldn’t he? And the spiritual man likes spiritual things. Did you ever see a young man that has a beautiful mother, a lovely home, a godly lather, and loving brothers and sisters, and the home a little paradise on earth, and he will turn his back on that home and go down to Boston, New Y<>rk ami Philadelphia, and get into what you call the slums, and he will go down, down, until he gets to a miserable old saloon where he is willing to clean out spittoons for drink. Tell him his mother wants him, is praying for him, and will give him a warm welcome, tell him how his father will receive him, tell him there is going to be rejoicing in his home if he will come back, tell him how his brothers and sisters long to have him come back, and he will turn and say:

“No, 1 want whiskeyl”

1 le has the old nature, lie wants snails.

Tell him that he is going to lose his soul, tell him he is making shipwreck of his life — in fact he has made shipwreck of his life — tell him about the glories of heaven, and he will say:

“You can have heaven with all its glory. You may have my mother; I will crush her under my heal. I despise Christianity.”

He has the old carnal nature. But if he gets God’s nature, he gets out from those surroundings pretty quickly. You can’t keep him there. I have seen men down in the slums converted, changed, and the next night they would have a new paper collar, and in the course of a week they are out of that crowd. What men want is to be born from above, born again, born of the Spirit; and then they will live for heaven. And you will never get a man or woman that will live for heaven until they are born from above, until they get the divine life.

How solemn these words are: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God,” much less inherit it. If this thing be true, it is a most solemn thing, and you and I cannot afford to be deceived. Let us put the question here to ourselves: Have I really been born of the Spirit?

1 just as much believe that a man has got to be born from above before he wants to go to heaven, as I believe that I exist. Take an unregenerated man, and put him under the shadow of the tree of life, and it would be hell to him. Take the carnal man, the natural man, and put him in the crystal pavements of heaven, and it would be hell to him. Alan has got to have a divine nature before he will want to go to heaven. If he has this low nature, he doesn’t want to go there. He would be out of his element, he would be out of his atmosphere, if he got there.

Make sure that you are in the Kingdom, that you have been born into it. We have a law in this country that no man can be president of the United States unless he was born here. I never heard any foreigner complain of that law. I want to know if the God of Heaven hasn’t a right to say who shall come into His Kingdom, and hasn’t He a right to say how they shall enter it? I think He has.

This is an awfully solemn question. Put it now to yourselves: “Have I been born again? Have I received the gift of God, which is eternal life?” If you haven’t, let this truth sink into your soul, that you will never see the Kingdom of God. You may see the kingdoms of this world, but the Kingdom of God you will never see. You may cross the Atlantic, and you may go to London and see the Prince of Wales, you may go to Germany and see the Crown Prince of Germany, you may go to Italy, 3tou may go to other nations; but the Prince of Peace you will never see. Your uncircumcised eye shall never rest upon him, except you are born again. You may go to London and go into the tower of London and see the crown of England, but the crown of glory your eyes shall never rest upon. You may go across this continent, and you may see those trees that have been growing out there on the Pacific Coast, some of them were perhaps growing when Moses was on earth, but there is one tree that your eyes shall never rest upon, the Tree of Life that grows in the midst of the paradise of God. You may see the beautiful cities of the earth; you may see old Rome, and London, and Paris, and New York in all their glory, but the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God, your uncircumcised eye shall never rest upon. You may see the beautiful rivers of earth; you may see the great Mississippi; you may see the Amazon and other mighty rivers; but the river that bursts from the throne of God, your eye shall never rest upon except you are born again.

Mother, perhaps you have not a hope in Jesus Christ. That little child that left you a few months ago lived long enough to twine itself around your heart, then death came and took that little child into a brighter and better world: you will nevei see that child again except you are born of God.

Oh, how solemn, how awfully solemn these thoughts are! If any of you have loved ones that have a glorious hope of immortality, and they are beckoning you to a better and brighter world, oh man, woman, be wise, be wise to-night; make sure you get into the Kingdom of God. Make sure nowl