AN AMAZING FACT: A wealthy family in England took their children to the country where they went swimming. When one of their boys began to drown, the son of a local gardener bravely jumped in to rescue him. The parents were so grateful for this deed, they asked the gardener what they could do for the young hero. The gardener said that his son desperately wanted to go to college to become a doctor, but he could not afford the tuition. The family gladly agreed to pay the courageous boy’s way through school for saving their son.
Years later, after the Teheran Conference, the prime minister was stricken with pneumonia. The King of England instructed that the best doctor be found to save the gravely ill leader. The doctor chosen was Sir Alexander Fleming, the developer of penicillin and Nobel laureate, who nursed Winston Churchill back to health. “Rarely,” said Churchill to Fleming, “has one man owed his life twice to the same rescuer.” You see, it was Fleming who had saved Churchill from drowning in his youth.
This incredible story can remind us of something Jesus once said to a famous leader in Israel who needed to be saved. The curious teacher complimented Christ, but the Lord turned the subject to a message that Nicodemus needed to hear. “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). The teacher missed the point. He asked, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” (v. 4). For a man who supposedly was a master of ideas, Nicodemus was lost on this one.
Christ was patient in leading His student to truth. “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again’” (v. 7). We have all been “born” once. But in order to receive salvation, we must be born twice. It’s like Winston Churchill’s experience of being saved twice. It seems like a rare and impossible experience, but with God, it is the doorway to life everlasting. Have you been rescued from sin and been born again?
This incredible story can remind us of something Jesus once said to a famous leader in Israel who needed to be saved. The curious teacher complimented Christ, but the Lord turned the subject to a message that Nicodemus needed to hear. “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). The teacher missed the point. He asked, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” (v. 4). For a man who supposedly was a master of ideas, Nicodemus was lost on this one.
Christ was patient in leading His student to truth. “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again’” (v. 7). We have all been “born” once. But in order to receive salvation, we must be born twice. It’s like Winston Churchill’s experience of being saved twice. It seems like a rare and impossible experience, but with God, it is the doorway to life everlasting. Have you been rescued from sin and been born again?
KEY BIBLE TEXTS
Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. 1 John 3:9