Going to Jesus

Gospel Tracts

 Select a tract to read:

• Tracts 1-50

  1. How I Received the Holy Ghost 2. Jesus Is Coming Again 3. You Must Be Born Again 4. Stir Up the Gift of God 5. The World’s Most Dreaded Hour 6. What is Salvation? 7. Stand Still in Jordan 9. Grieved Hearts 10. The Second Death 11. The Father and the Son 12. Suffering and the Saints 13. Cancer Conquered 14. The Church? 15. How Shall They Preach, Except They Be Sent? 16. Have You Received the Holy Ghost Since You Believed? 17. Patience 18. Alone With God 19. Tithes and Offerings 20. Prayer 21. The True Sabbath 22. The Besetting Sin 23. The Cry of the Righteous 24. What Will the Harvest Be? 25. Marriage and Divorce 26. Taking the Name of the Lord 27. The Keys of the Kingdom 28. Works 29. Politics and Believers 30. Unequally Yoked in Marriage 31. Coming Out of Babylon 32. The Forgiven Woman 33. The New Earth 34. The Sin of Silence 35. Freedom 36. Gods of the Gentiles 37. Why Some Are Not Healed 38. The Seven Pillars 39. Life, More Abundantly 40. Fear 41. The Comforter’s Testimony 42. This is My Friend 43. Conversion 44. The Time Is Drawing Near? 45. Songs in the Night 46. The Master’s Net 47. Trials are Opportunities 48. Receiving the Messenger 49. Seven Messages to the Seven Pastors 50. Keep Yourself Pure

• Tracts 51-100

  51. The New Birth 52. John the Baptist and Jesus 53. Denying Jesus 54. Bruised Reeds 56. The Wise and the Foolish 57. Holiness 58. Is Jesus God? 59. Christ or Christianity 60. Have Faith In God 61. Worthy to Suffer 63. Four Kinds of Soil 64. Communion 65. The Fullness of Time 66. Baptism 68. No Room 69. Crucified With Christ 70. Homosexuality and the Bible 71. The Kingdom of God 72. The Gospel of Christ 74. Perseverance 75. The Resurrection 76. Salvation 77. Sanctification 78. New Commandments 79. The Sacrifice of Christ 81. The Sound of the Spirit 82. The Wrath of God 84. God’s Compass 85. Perfection 86. The Abomination of Desolation 87. Antichrist 88. The Way of Grace 90. Relationships 91. The Vineyard of God 93. Subdued 94. The Spirit of Christ 95. The Blood of Christ 96. Spirit of a Serpent, Spirit of a Dove 97. Gluttony 98. The Lost Lamb 99. Scripture Burners 100. Bleating and Lowing

 

The phrase, “You must be born again,” came from Jesus himself.  The Lord made that statement to Nicodemus, a respected elder of Israel.  Jesus made it clear to his night-time visitor that he was speaking of the nation of Israel as a whole when he told him, “You must be born again.”  They were already God’s people by virtue of being born as Jews, yet there was a change coming that would require them to be born again – spiritually – in order to remain God’s people.

Jesus compared the new birth to the wind blowing.  He said, “The wind blows wherever it will, and you hear its sound. . . .  So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (Jn. 3:8).  These words are of the greatest importance, for in them, Jesus described an element of the new birth that applies to “everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  In other words, Jesus has given us a sign which lets us know who is born again and who is not.

This sign, the one consistent element in every new birth experience, is a sound.  This sound of the Spirit caused quite a stir in Jerusalem when the disciples were born again: “They were all filled with holy Spirit, and they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit moved them to speak” (Acts 2:4).  When the holy Ghost is received, some may weep; some may laugh; some may jump for joy; some may fall prostrate on the floor; some may be overcome with the power of God; and some may be dealt with gently by the Spirit.  But the one invariable evidence of receiving the Spirit is a sound the Spirit makes.

The sound of the Spirit confessing Christ through the one who has received him (cf. 1Jn. 4:1–3) is the testimony Jesus said the Spirit would give when it came (Jn. 15:26–27).  God gave this witness concerning His Son (1Jn. 5:10), and it is the means by which men call on the name of the Lord (Zeph. 3:9).  One can easily understand why Paul was motivated to say that no one could say Jesus is Lord without the holy Ghost (1Cor. 12:1–3), for it is the holy Ghost that empowers men to be living witnesses to his glory (Acts 1:8).

The disciples were born again on the day of Pentecost when the sound of God's holy wind blew down from heaven upon them, and its sound was heard by the crowd in Jerusalem – a sound coming from the disciples’ own mouths!  In amazement, the multitude beheld the disciples stagger as drunk men under the mighty power of God as they spoke in languages they had never learned.  That was the day the disciples were born again, and it happened just as Jesus said it would.  The Spirit made a sound through everyone who received it.  And the Spirit still makes its holy sound today through everyone who receives it!

Jezreel

“They will hear Jezreel.” (Hos. 2:22)

Isaiah prophesied that those who trusted in Christ Jesus would be called “trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord” (Isa. 61:3). Using this same metaphor, Jesus said, “Every plant that my heavenly Father did not plant will be uprooted.” Then, if we are to have a place in the kingdom of God, we must be planted, or sown, into the kingdom of God by God Himself.  “Jezreel” was the name of an ancient Israelite city, and it means, “God will sow”, or “the sowing of God”.  When God said through Hosea, “They will hear Jezreel.  For I will sow her for me in the land,” he was prophesying of what happened in Acts 2:4, when the seed of God was sown into the hearts of Jesus’ disciples. They were “filled with holy Spirit, and they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit moved them to speak,” and the people heard them.  They heard the sowing of God, planting men and women into His kingdom.

That prophecy of hearing God’s seed being sown is similar to how Jesus’ described the new birth in John 3:8. According to Jesus, the one consistent feature involved in every “new birth” experience is the sound of it. He said, “The wind blows wherever it will, and you hear its sound.  So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” The disciples experienced this on the day of Pentecost, and it fulfilled what Hosea said: “They will hear Jezreel [the sowing of God].”

That is the “sound” Jesus said would accompany every new birth. It is the “baptism of the holy Ghost” which was poured out on Pentecost morning. It is the “stammering lips” of Isaiah 28:11. It is the “pure language” of Zephaniah 3:9. It is Paul’s cry of “Abba, Father” and the “groanings beyond words.” It is Peter’s “answer of a clear conscience”. It is David’s “joyful sound”, which wise men recognize when they hear it. It is John’s “confession that Jesus Christ has come into a person.” It is the “voice from the temple” of God in heaven, the “sound of the Lord rendering recompense to His enemies.” It is the “deep” that “is calling to deep in the sound of [God’s] waterspouts.” It is the “fountain of water springing up into eternal life”. It is the speaking that comes because of believing, foretold in Psalm 116:10. It is the voice of the Son, declaring the name of his Father “in the midst of the congregation” (Ps. 22:22). It is the Spirit “making intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” It is the “testimony of the Lord”, the “blessing of the Lord”, the “sign to unbelievers”, the “manifestation of the Spirit” which is given to every believer “for the common good.” It is the Father “knowing them that are His” and setting them apart as His peculiar people. This is Jezreel, “the sowing of God”!  And it is no wonder the prophet was moved to exclaim, “Great is the day of Jezreel!”