"Ye must be born again." Listen to those words of our Lord Jesus! Tell it to sinful men as they struggle in their bondage and try to rise to better things. Proclaim the message to those who are inclined to be proud of their achievements and to trust their own understanding. "Ye must be born again!"

The wise elder, Nicodemus, was greatly puzzled by our Lord's words. When Jesus confronted him with the necessity of this spiritual experience, Nicodemus said, "How can these things be?"

Jesus described to Nicodemus the New Birth in these words: “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth. So is every one that is born of the Spirit.” (Jn. 3:8) Do you know when and where his disciples received such an experience as Jesus described here? Keep his description, "The wind bloweth where it listeth", on your mind, and read with me this scene from Acts, chapter two: "And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance."

How much more perfectly could Jesus have described the New Birth? The wind which blew here in Acts, chapter two, was the one to which Jesus was referring when he told Nicodemus, "Ye must be born again." The disciples were born again when they were baptized with the holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost. The disciple John would later write, concerning the new birth: "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God...He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself... And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth." Paul adds to the words of John by saying: "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our Spirit, that we are the children of God." This is Paul's way of explaining the purpose of speaking in tongues when one is baptized with the holy Ghost. It is God's witness that one is born again. Do you have God's witness, or merely your own? or your pastor's? or some other man's?

Listen to Jesus describe to his disciples their own spiritual condition prior to receiving the holy Ghost:

"A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you."

Surely, my friends, we can see that Jesus was telling his disciples that they were as "a woman in travail." In other words, they were in the womb of the kingdom of God, but had not yet been born into it. They had been conceived by the Word, but had not yet come to the hour of birth. Everyone who knew and believed Jesus were, before the Spirit came, in a state of spiritual conception, no longer of the world, but not yet born into the kingdom of God. They had received Jesus' words (cp. Jn. 17: 8), but had not received the holy Ghost (Jn.14:17). To be convicted of sin by the Spirit is not to be converted from sin. The conception, good as it is, is not when sins are washed away. Sins are washed away only when one receives the baptism of the holy Ghost, the Spirit itself bearing witness in a language which the baptized person has never learned. Study the examples given to us in the Bible, in the book of Acts. Whose sins were ever washed away, before receiving the baptism of the Spirit? This is why the Apostles boldly taught that no one will be saved who does not have this experience. Please do not take the holy Ghost baptism lightly. Regardless of one's reputation among men, he cannot enter the kingdom without this experience.

As with the natural birth process, the starting point of the new birth is "conception." Everywhere in creation, conception precedes birth. The seed must always be sown first. No one would confuse the conception of a human child with the birth of that child. But many today call the receiving of the Word of God the New Birth. They tell those whom God has convicted of sin that they are born again, simply because they are under conviction, yet they have not received the holy Ghost. Nature itself teaches us, however, that not every seed that is sown will germinate. Indeed, relatively few of the seeds sown do bear fruit, whether one is speaking naturally or spiritually. Many who are convicted of their sins and go to an altar never receive the holy Ghost baptism. Why? The Seed of life, sown in their hearts, is somehow taken away or allowed to die, either by neglect or fear of persecution. Read Jesus' parable concerning the Sower and the Seed in Matthew thirteen. It shows us that not every one who hears the truth and is convicted by it will continue to follow after God. Many were truly conceived by the Word of God during Jesus' earthly ministry, yet only about one hundred and twenty "continued in the Word" to receive the New Birth baptism on the day of Pentecost.

When one hears and is convicted of sin by the Spirit, a wonderful change begins to take place, a change wrought by the love and power of God. As he begins to feel the life of the Spirit, his countenance and behavior is altered by the will of God. And if he continues to follow after Christ, and not allow the wicked one to steal that seed from his heart, the day will come when the Lord will baptize him with the holy Ghost. He will come out of the womb! To be numbered among the blood-washed saints!

Anyone who has experienced the New Birth can say, "I do not know how it was done. I cannot explain how the holy Spirit could come into my life and make a new creature out of me. But this one thing I do know, that, whereas I was a sinner, groping in spiritual blindness, now I am a child of God. The Spirit of God has wrought a great change in me. How it is done, the greatest theologian on earth cannot explain, but that it is done, the simplest child of God knows."

The experience of New Birth is sometimes illustrated by the process by which a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. First, there is the worm, hairy and ugly, crawling in the dust. Then one day that worm wraps itself in a cocoon. There it remains for a time, and then, on a warm day, that cocoon is burst asunder and a beautiful butterfly emerges, no more to crawl as a worm in the dust, but to soar in the heavenly places, and to nestle in the heart of flowers. A sinner, convicted of his sin by the Spirit, wraps himself in the cocoon of God's love and protection. His life becomes a mystery to those on the outside. Old companions call him strange. But when the Spirit of God comes into his life, he becomes a son of God, born to sit in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. And He is just waiting for you to come.