J.C. Ryle Practical Religion, 1878
“Who am I? Have I put off the old man of sin and put on the new life in Christ? Am I really one with Christ, and a forgiven soul?”
A.W. Pink “Assurance”
https://gracegems.org/Pink/assurance.htm
There is a greater difference between the genuine Christian, and the deceived professing Christian — than there is between a living man and a corpse. None need remain in doubt if they will honestly measure themselves by the Holy Word of God.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“The Test of Real Christianity” on Romans 8:5-8
https://www.mljtrust.org/sermons/book-of-romans/real-christianity-the-test/
You are either a Christian or you are not a Christian.
You are either “dead” or “alive”.
You are either “born” or “not born”.
“Beyond Understanding” on John 3:5-9
https://www.mljtrust.org/sermons/book-of-john/beyond-understanding/
What does it mean to be born again? There are many who are outside the kingdom because they don’t really know what this New Birth represents. Let me put it simply and clearly to you under a number of headings. Let me say some things that are True About the New Birth. I’m Not Asking If You have made a Decision for Christ!
Are you born again as there is no entrance into the kingdom of God without this?
1) The First Thing we have to say about it is it is God’s Action.
‘Verily, Verily, I say unto you, unless one is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God’ (John 3:5). It is the Action of the Holy Spirit. Being ‘Born Again’ IS NOT Something that You and I Do. It is Something That is Done to Us. ‘For, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the Power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes’ (Rom.1:16) – The Power of God unto Salvation! Man’s Power Can NEVER Save. Are you clear about this First Principle, my friend, that a Man Can Never Make Himself a Christian? God Alone Makes Christians. It is to be born of the Spirit!
2) To Be Born Again is a Supernatural Action.
It is a Miraculous Action; it is a Marvelous Action – This Is The Miracle of God. I emphasize this because I’m convinced more and more that what is wrong with the Church today is because we have forgotten the miraculous element. We put so much emphasis on man. We start with man, and we think that man has it in his power to do this and that. My dear friends, this is a Miracle. The Christian is a New Creation; God has worked a Miracle in his soul, and nothing less than that.
3) The New Birth is a Secret Operation.
‘The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So, is everyone who is born of the Spirit’ (John 3:8). There it is, you suddenly hear the sound of the wind, you’ve never seen it, but you see its effects. You see the trees swaying. You don’t see the wind, and you can’t understand it. There’s a kind of Mystery about it. The New Birth is a Secret Operation in the Soul. The ‘Soul’ is a Mystery to a man; the ‘Soul’ is the Most Important Thing in Man.
4) The New Birth Is Not Something You Can Understand.
You Can’t Understand Miracles. You Can’t Understand the New Birth. But it is True, it is a Fact. The simplest way I can put it is like this; this is what happens when a man is born again. God puts a New Principle of Life into the Man’s Soul, and thus He gives him a New Governing Disposition in his soul, a New Governing Nature in his soul. The Born-Again man has been given a New Nature, a New Life with New Desires. He becomes a ‘partaker of the divine nature’ (2 Peter 1:4) – the Life of God in the Soul of Man. His heart is given a new direction; his mind and his will are given a new direction. And it leads to New Results which the born-again man knows of, and everybody else is aware of. When a man is born-again, he’s conscious that he has this New Nature Within him.
It leads to a New Outlook; it leads to a New Interest in Spiritual Things. He wants to read the Bible and spend time in prayer. He wants to know God and Christ. He wants to be like Christ and he finds a New Power within himself.
You can be religious without it. You can be a church member without it. But, you can’t go to heaven without it.
“Born Again” on John 3:8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP9a0hvQrnA
"The New Birth" Great Doctrines of the Bible
The doctrine of regeneration teaches that it is something God does within us. It is a new life put in us, a new principle of life and obedience, and therefore it is something which grows and develops and becomes progressively greater.
“Romans – The Perseverance Of The Saints”
There has been so much emphasis upon decision, receiving, yielding, being wiling, and giving ourselves that salvation is regarded almost exclusively in terms of our activity…Many are in trouble simply because they do not realize the truth concerning the new birth…(that) it is the work of God through the Spirit.
We do not give birth to ourselves, we are not reborn because we believe.
We believe because we are reborn.
“Are You Born Again”
https://www.mljtrust.org/blog/are-you-born-again-lloyd-jones/
A man who is truly born again, born of the Spirit is a man who sees that revelation from God is an absolute necessity. He doesn’t argue about Miracles because it, the Miracle of the New Birth, has happened to him. Miracles are a Fact, the Supernatural, the Miraculous. He knows they are true. He’s in the miraculous; he’s been lifted to the Realm of the Supernatural himself, so, he doesn’t argue about these things.
“The Message of Salvation” on John 3:14-15
https://opentheo.org/i/2035627031571726491/the-message-of-salvation
“A True Belief” on Hebrews 6:7-8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x1EsaQ0-YI
“The Essentials of Salvation” on Romans 10:9-10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP7k2a48am0
Proofs That a Person is Truly Born Again, from "A Child Of God In Christ"
https://www.mljtrust.org/sermons/great-biblical-doctrines/a-child-of-god-in-christ/
"Seven Biblical Evidences of Regeneration"
https://www.mljtrust.org/blog/are-you-born-again-lloyd-jones/
The Bible gives seven (7) main tests, or proofs, that a person is truly born again by the Holy Spirit and is saved. They are as follows:
1. The first test is: ‘believing that Jesus is the Christ’.
The Bible says, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God” (1 John 4:1-2). Now this is a most important statement. It means the full doctrine about the Lord Jesus Christ. It means that you believe that Jesus Christ is indeed Eternal God, one of three Persons of the blessed Holy Trinity, and has been born as a sinless human being in this world in which we live.
Apply that test to some of the cults around today and you will see what a vital test it is. It is not enough that you praise Jesus Christ; it is not even enough that you say He is the Son of God. You must say that He is Jehovah, that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh – the eternal Son of God, co-equal, co-eternal with the Father – that the second Person in the blessed Trinity has come in the flesh.
2. The second test is the test of ‘keeping the commandments’.
The Bible says, “Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments” (1 John 2:3). “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments: and His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3).
That is the way to distinguish between the child of God and the child of the devil, says John. And to the born again person keeping God’s commandments are a delight. Our obedience to and love of the commandments of God and of Christ proclaim at once whether we are truly born again by the Holy Spirit or not.
3. The third test is that ‘He has given us His Holy Spirit’.
The Bible says, “And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us” (1 John 3:24). One aspect of this doctrine is certainly this: there is such a thing, says the apostle Paul, as “you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father’” (Rom. 8:15). One of the proofs, therefore, that the Holy Spirit is in us is that, though we may not understand it fully, we have a feeling, a consciousness, that God is our Father. He is no longer a God afar off, but He is our Father. We say, ‘My God, my Father.’
4. The fourth test is that ‘we love the brethren’.
The Bible says, “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren” (1 John 3:14). If we are truly born again, then we will recognize Christians when we meet them and we will have a love for each other because of our common faith in Christ. If we are all joined to Him and joined to one another, we are related to one another and we inevitably love one another.
5. The fifth test is the test of ‘the consciousness of a struggle within us’.
I regard this test as of great value and which has been a great comfort to me many times in my Christian life: ‘the consciousness of a struggle within’. Paul describes it perfectly in Galatians 5:17: “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another.” What it means is that by definition, Christians are people in whom a great competition is taking place. The Holy Spirit wants them for God, but the flesh – this other spirit that is worked by the devil – wants them for the kingdom of darkness.
If you are a Christian, you are aware of this conflict between the Spirit and the flesh within you. You are aware of the fact that the Holy Spirit is in you, working in you, drawing you to Christ, weaning you from the world and indicating truth to you. You are aware of the operation of the Holy Spirit and you are aware of the power of Satan in a sense that you never were before. That is a proof that you have been truly born again.
6. The sixth test is this: anybody who is aware of a desire to know God, and not merely a desire to be blessed by God, can be quite happy and certain of being a child of God.
True children of God want their Father. They want to know their Father better. They are more interested in God and in His Word, the Bible, than any blessing or gift He may or may not give them. They don’t follow Christ for what they can get from Him. They begin to know something of a hunger and thirst for God Himself.
7. The last test is: that true children of God do not merely desire forgiveness of their sins, but they also hate sin.
I regard this as very important – that children of God do not merely desire forgiveness of their sins and an avoidance of the consequences of sins, but they also know what it is to hate sin. In other words, they say like Paul said, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall save me?” (Romans 7:24).
Now people who have never been born again by the Holy Spirit, don’t have a sense of what great sinners they are before a holy God, and they do not know a true conviction of sin. But the children of God do.
That is why our Lord Jesus Christ says concerning them: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Matt. 5:6). Why are they blessed? It is because they are already children of God. True Christians have a positive hunger and thirst for a positive righteousness. They want to be like Christ. They want to be holy. They want to be like God.
The man or woman who is born of God, who is regenerate, simply does not and cannot continue - abide - in a life of sin. (1 John 3:6) They may backslide temporarily, but if they are born of God they will come back.
“His Workmanship”
https://www.monergism.com/his-workmanship-ephesians-210
Can you say that you are God’s workmanship? Have you got that subjective feeling of being dealt with by God? Are you aware of the Presence and of the hands? Are you conscious of being moulded and fashioned? Do you agree with this doctrine, or are you fighting against it? That is a very good test.
But, still, the best test of all is this: Are you desiring holiness? ‘Created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.’ It is a part of His plan. If you do not desire to be holy I do not see that you have any right to think that you are a Christian. It is a part of God’s design that we be prepared unto good works. If you think that you can abstract forgiveness only from the plan of salvation, you completely misunderstand the plan. When God looked upon you and loved you and began to work in you to make you a Christian, He had already prepared the works which you should live and perform. There is no such thing as justification without sanctification. If there is no beginning of sanctification in you, you are not justified. Do not delude yourself, do not mislead yourself. There is no such thing as faith without works ‘Faith without works is dead.’ The proof of faith is works. There is no value in a profession of Christianity unless it is accompanied by a desire to be like Christ, a desire to be rid of sin, a desire after positive holiness. According to this verse it is essential. ‘We are his workmanship, created (by him) in Christ Jesus unto good works.’ He is making us for that. God works in us to produce this result.
So the final test of whether God is working in us is that we desire to be more and more like Christ, holy and pure, separate from the world and from sin, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, that we may please the God who has thus begun to work in us.
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
The Puritans dealt at great length with what they called “temporary believers”. They meant by that, people who seemed to come under the influence of the gospel, and who gave the appearance of being truly and soundly converted and regenerate.
Such people said the right things and there was a change in their lives; they appeared to be Christian. But the Puritans called them “temporary believers” because those people gave clear, unmistakable evidence afterwards that they had never truly become Christian at all.
But our Lord’s argument is that what really decides whether a man is a true Christian or not is the nature within. And that nature within is bound to express itself. You may have to wait before you can see any true evidence. God sees it from the beginning, but we are very slow to these things. But what a man is, he is bound to show.
The way to test yourself, the way to test any man, is to look below the surface. Discover whether he conforms to the Beatitudes. Is he poor in spirit; is he meek; is he humble; does he groan in his spirit as he sees the world; is he a holy man of God; is he (serious); is he sober; does he say with Paul, ‘We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened’? (2 Corinthians 5:4)
Those are the tests, the tests of the Beatitudes, the tests of the Sermon on the Mount – the man’s Character, the man’s Nature. Not the appearances only, but the Reality itself alone counts with God.
"The Conversion of Charles Haddon Spurgeon"
Spurgeon’s marks of true conversion from “Revelation and Conversion”, Part II. “The Excellence of This Work of Conversion”
https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/revelation-and-conversion/#flipbook/
When the Word of God converts a man, it takes away from him his despair but it does not take from him his repentance.
That is a grand kind of conversion, — that the man, who had been in despair because of his sin, is made to know that his sin is forgiven, and yet he is not led to trifle or tamper with sin. By faith, he sees the wounds of Jesus, and he knows how Christ bled to set him free from the bondage of sin, and that makes him forever hate sin.
True conversion gives a man pardon, but does not make him presumptuous.
True conversion gives a man perfect rest, but it does not stop his progress.
True conversion gives a man security, but it does not allow him to leave off being watchful.
True conversion gives a man strength and holiness, but it never lets him boast.
He knows that a great change has been wrought in him, but he still sees so much of his own imperfections that he mourns over them before the Lord.
True conversion gives a harmony to all the duties of Christian life;…it balances all duties, emotions, hopes and enjoyments.
True conversion brings a man to live for God. He does everything for the glory of God, — whether he eats, or drinks, or whatsoever he does. True conversion makes a man live before God….He desires to live as in God’s sight at all times, and he is glad to be there….And such a man now comes to live with God. He has blessed communion with him; he talks with him as a man talks with his friend.
J.C. Ryle Practical Religion
“Self-Inquiry”
https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/ryle/Practical%20Religion%20-Ryle.pdf
Sense of sin and deep hatred of it, faith in Christ and love to Him, delight in holiness and longing after more of it, love for God's people and distaste for the things of the world,--these, these are the signs and evidences which always accompany conversion.
“The Great Separation”
https://www.gracegems.org/Ryle/great_separation.htm
Have you been born again? Are you a new creature? Have you put off the old man and put on the new? Have you ever felt convicted of your sins and repented of them? Are you looking only to Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and eternal life? Do you love Christ? Do you serve Christ? Do you hate your sins and fight against them? Do you long for perfect holiness and strive after it? Have you come out from the world? Do you delight in the Bible? Do you wrestle in prayer? Do you love Christ's people? Do you try to do good to the world? Are you vile in your own eyes and willing to take the lowest place? Do you live like a Christian at work, and on weekdays, and also in the privacy of your own home? Oh, think, think, think on these things, and then perhaps you will be better able to tell the state of your soul.
Do not rest, do not rest, until you know how it is between you and God.
A.W. Pink “Studies on Saving Faith”
https://www.the-highway.com/articleNov99.html
An honest heart does not fear the light. A sincere soul is willing to be searched by the Truth. If you are unable to endure now the feeble probing of one of His servants, how will it fare in a soon-coming day when the Lord Himself shall search you through and through? O dear friend, give your poor soul a fair chance, be willing to ascertain whether your faith is real wheat, or only chaff. If it proves to be the latter, there is still time for you to humble yourself before God and cry unto Him to give you saving faith.
John Piper
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/how-are-we-born-again
Paul Washer at the Youth Evangelism Conference, Montgomery, Alabama, May 23, 2002 on Matthew 7:13-27 https://heartcrymissionary.com/sermons/shocking-youth-message/
The person who loves you most will tell you the most truth. One of the greatest distinguishing marks of a false prophet is that he will always tell you what you want to hear, he will never rain on your parade, he will get you clapping, he will get you jumping, he will make you dizzy, he will keep you entertained, and he will present a Christianity to you that will make your church look like a Six Flags over Jesus. And keep you so entertained you are never addressed with great issues such as these:
Is God working in my life?
Am I growing in holiness?
Have I truly been born again?
Also see
https://sites.google.com/site/anotherdaysjourneybackhome/what-are-you-waiting-for/false-assurance
https://sites.google.com/site/anotherdaysjourneybackhome/examine-yourself
Are you a child of God? Are you aware of a new man in you? Have you lost the fear of death? Have you had victory over your former sin and self? Are you aware of a new power in your life?
Can you look to a glorious future and say, "I am going to be there"?
Do you know these things in reality?