The New Birth

New Birth Teaching Series

"You must be born again"

Three hours of audio teaching (transcript available) from Pastor John Clark, Sr. on the subject of the "New Birth". When is a person born again and how do you know? The Bible contains clear revelation from God about when a person is born again. Learn what had to occur before the new birth was available to man. Listen as Pastor John covers these topics and more:

• What Jesus had to do before the New Birth was available.
• When were the disciples born again?
• The spiritual condition of the disciples before Pentecost.
• The promise of the Father.
• Do you receive the Spirit before being baptized with it?
• What did Jesus mean by "born again"?
• The spirit of Antichrist.
• What must I do to be born again?

This is perhaps the most important issue for a person to understand.

Have you been born again?

Thought for the Evening
1-28

Conception Versus Birth

I do not diminish the importance of conviction for sin (or spiritual conception). Who could be born without being first conceived by the word of God? But we must understand God's purpose in conception, and embrace it. The whole point of receiving the word of the gospel and being conceived in the womb of the kingdom of God is to continue in the word to be born again. An unsuccessful pregnancy is a tragedy, whether it is a miscarriage or an abortion. Many people have received the word of God gladly, and then lacked the faith to proceed to the experience of new birth. That is a miscarriage, and Jesus mentioned such a tragedy in his parable of the four kinds of soil, in Matthew 13. Many others have received the word of God gladly, and then had that seed stolen from their hearts by the doctrines of Christian ministers before it could come to term. That is spiritual abortion.

Being conceived is good, but it can only be appreciated by those who are born. And how much better is the birth of a child than the conception of one! This is the way that God feels in His heart, but it is not the heart of one who has the spirit of a harlot. A harlot hates the thought of bearing a child, though she earns her living by performing the act by which conception may occur - just as multitudes of Christian ministers hate the thought of seeing someone baptized with the holy Ghost and fire, though they earn their living by "preaching the word", the act which could lead to spiritual conception.

Such spiritual abortionists love to see the word convict and change a sinful life; they rejoice when men respond to their "altar call"; they study; they build; they give; they pray; they cross land and sea to make converts. In short, they love the activities that cause conception, just as a whore does. But all their religious activity is no more in God's sight than the cheap perfume of a streetwalker plying her ungodly trade if the result of all that activity is not the new birth of the souls who have received His word into their hearts. The act of sowing the seed may be there, but to what end? The raising of even more money seems to be the principal result of much of the religious activity in this part of the world. But where are the souls being baptized with the holy Ghost and born into the kingdom of God?

Most Christian ministers, "thinking to do God a service", abort any person who becomes conceived by the word of the gospel they proclaim. They do not believe in speaking in tongues and so, discourage the souls who are on the way to that new birth experience. How foolish they are! They like performing the act that leads to conception, but they hate the thought of having someone truly born again by receiving the baptism of the holy Ghost.

When God called Christianity the "great whore", He was referring to Christianity's obsession with religious activity for profit, instead of for producing real children of God. It is a metaphor, the perfection of which we can understand only when we see the difference between being conceived by the word and being born of it.