Our Religion is Good for Nothing If Our Nature Has Not Been Renewed

The great British evangelist, George Whitefield, was preaching during the Great Awakening to a crowd of 20,000 hearers in the open air on Boston Common. A New England minister approached him and asked, Mr. Whitefield, since you've been among us, all you preach is one theme, ye must be born again. Oh, when, sir, will you preach a different message? To which Whitefield replied, when ye are born again.

Oh, Whitefield preached in a day of an unconverted ministry. The sad reality is, friends, we live in a day where few or born-again believers, oh, our churches are full of nice folks who attend each Sunday and who laugh and sing and clap and give their money, but they leave the church full of religion, but empty of a regenerated heart. The title of my message today, friends, is, our religion is good for nothing.

If our nature has not been renewed, ye must be born again. George Whitefield knew firsthand how it felt to be an unconverted church member. He was a student at Oxford and a member of John Wesley's Holy Club.

He fasted, he prayed, he gave alms, he visited the sick and those in prison. He even denied himself warm clothes and good food as he strived to be as religious as he could. You would view a young George Whitefield walking across the Common, going about his religious duties and say, there goes a devout Christian.

But inside, Whitefield knew all was not well with his soul. It wasn't until his good friend, Charles Wesley, loaned him a book by the Scotsman, Henry Schugel, that Whitefield saw his lost estate and his unconverted condition, and he prayed to God to be born again. The book was entitled, The Life of God in the Soul of Man.

And from reading that little book, Whitefield entered into a true salvation experience with Christ and knew firsthand what it meant to have the life of God in the soul of man. From that point forward, George Whitefield preached one great theme until he died. Ye must be born again.

And God shook two continents in revival under Whitefield's preaching. And I will say to you, friends, your religion is good for nothing if your nature has not been by a supernatural work of grace and regeneration whereby the Spirit of God takes the heart of stone and makes it a heart of flesh and makes you a new creation and implants in you a disposition for holiness. This stuff we call evangelism and salvation today in our churches couldn't save a flea, much less a person hardened in sin.

Ye must be born again. That is what our Lord Jesus told Nicodemus. Turn in your Bibles, friends, to the Gospel of John in chapter 3 as we examine our subject today of the new birth.

Beginning in John chapter 3 and verse 5, we read, Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again.

A man once told me that he grew up in church and his family were Christians, but he himself did not know if he'd been born again. He had doubts about it, and he struggled to find some assurance. I gave him a simple illustration.

Would you know if you were married? You can't be married and not know it. With Christ you will know if you are saved by being in a vital union with a living Lord. You will know the experience of the life of God and the soul of man.

But if God has never wrought a work of grace upon the heart, then that individual will merely have religion but have no relationship with the Savior. He will tolerate religion but have no taste for things of eternal worth. Let me ask you, friend, have you been born from above and washed in the blood? Oh, I hope you have.

Our religion is good for nothing if our nature has not been renewed. But Jesus told Nicodemus, 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.

I remember when I was a lost religious man who just graduated from seminary. I was sitting at a round dinner table at my seminary's graduation banquet. Talk went around the table as to what degrees each of us were receiving.

One pastor said he was getting his master's in divinity degree. A pastor sitting next to me announced at the table he was finally getting his doctorate degree. A pastor sitting directly across from me looked at me and asked, What degree are you getting, brother? I replied that I had already had my doctorate.

I was now receiving my Ph.D., to which this pastor sarcastically said, Oh, what will they call you, Dr. Doctor? And everyone sitting at that table got a big belly laugh out of that one. But looking back on that experience, I wrote a little poem which went like this. Dr. Doctor was all the rave, but Dr. Doctor wasn't saved.

I wasn't saved. I was just a lost man on a religious road to hell. I knew theology.

I knew the Word of God. But I didn't know the God of the Word. But God in his mercy got me lost one day so he could save me.

Let me ask you, friend. Have you ever been lost? Have you ever been saved? Are you born again? In 2 Corinthians 5.17 we read, Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away.

Behold, all things become new.