Are You Regenerate? # 5

Are You Regenerate? # 5

And what is it they need in order to make them fit to enjoy heaven? They need to be regenerated or born again. It is not a little changing and outward amendment they require. It is not merely the putting a restraint on raging passions, and the quieting of unruly affections. All this is not enough. Old age - the lack of opportunity for indulgence - the fear of man, may produce all this. The tiger is still a tiger, even when he is chained; and the serpent is still a serpent, even when he lies motionless and coiled up. The alteration needed is far greater and deeper. They must have a new nature put within them. They must be made new creatures. The fountain-head must be purified. The root must be set right. Each one needs a new heart and a new will. The change required is not that of the snake, when he casts his skin and yet remains a reptile still. It is the change of the caterpillar, when he dies and his crawling life ceases - but from his body rises the butterfly - a new animal, with a new nature. All this, and nothing less, is required.

The plain truth is, the vast proportion of professing Christians in the churches have nothing whatever of Christianity, except the name. The reality of Christianity, the graces, the experience, the faith, the hopes, the life, the conflict, the tastes, the hungering and thirsting after righteousness - all these are things of which they know nothing at all. They need to be converted as truly as any among the heathen to whom Paul preached, and to be turned from idols, and renewed in the spirit of their minds, as really, if not as literally. And one main part of the message which should be continually delivered to the greater portion of every congregation on earth, is this - "You must be born again." I write this down deliberately. I know it will sound dreadful and uncharitable in many ears. But I ask anyone to take the New Testament in his hand and see what it says in Christianity, and compare that with the ways of professing Christians, and then deny the truth of what I have written, if he can.

And now let everyone who reads these pages remember this grand principle of Scriptural religion - "No salvation without Regeneration - no spiritual life without a new birth - no heaven without a new heart."

Think not for a moment that the subject of this tract is a mere matter of controversy - an empty question for learned men to argue about - but not one that concerns you. Away with such an idea forever! It concerns you deeply. It touches your own eternal interests. It is a thing that you must know for yourself, feel for yourself, and experience for yourself, if you would ever be saved. No man, woman will ever enter heaven without having been born again. Make sure to yourselves this great change. It is no notion that I have now preached unto you. Your natures and your lives must be changed, or, believe it, you will be found at the last day under the wrath of God. For God will not change or alter the Word that is gone out of His mouth. He has said it - Christ, who is the truth and Word of God, has pronounced it - that without a new birth, or Regeneration, no man shall inherit the kingdom of God."

And think not for one moment that this regeneration is a change which people may go through after they are dead, though they never went through it while they were alive. Away with such a notion forever! Now or never is the only time to be saved. Now, in this world of toil and labor - of money - getting and business - now you must be prepared for heaven, if you are ever to be prepared at all. Now is the only time to be justified, now the only time to be sanctified, and now the only time to be born again. So sure as the Bible is true, the man who dies without these three things, will only rise again at the last day to be lost forever.

You may be saved, and reach heaven without many things which men reckon of great importance - without riches, without learning, without books, without worldly comforts, without heath, without house, without land, without friends - but without Regeneration you will never be saved at all. Without your natural birth you would never have lived, and moved on earth; without a new birth you will never live and move in heaven. I bless God that the saints in glory will be a multitude that no man can number. I comfort  myself with the thought that, after all, there will be "a great multitude" in heaven. But this I know and am persuaded of from God's Word, that of all who reach heaven, there will not be one single individual who has not been born again.

"Are you born again?" I say to everyone whose eye is upon this page. Once more I repeat what I have already said, "No salvation without a new birth." 

III. Let me, in the third place, point out the MARKS of being Regenerate, or born again.

It is a most important thing to have clear and distinct views on this part of the subject we are considering. You have seen what regeneration is, and why it is necessary to salvation. The next step is to find out the signs and evidences by which a man may know whether he is born again or not - whether his heart has been changed by the Holy Spirit, or whether his change is yet to come.

Now these signs and evidences are laid down plainly for us in Scripture. God has not left us in ignorance on this point. He foresaw how some would torture themselves with doubts and questionings, and would never believe it was well with their souls. He foresaw how others would take it for granted that they were regenerate who had no right to do so at all. He has therefore mercifully provided us with a test and gauge of our spiritual condition, in the First Epistle of John. There He has written for our learning, what the regenerate man is, and what the regenerate man does - his ways, his habits, his manner of life, his faith, his experience. Everyone who wishes to possess the key to a right understanding of this subject should thoroughly study this First Epistle of John.

~J. C. Ryle~

(continued with # 6)