MERRY MONDAY BY PARRIS BAILEY-
“Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. 1 Peter 1:23
Every Saturday morning after Beyond the Grave, I wake up and spend thinking about the ones that went up to receive Christ. For some it will be just like any other Saturday, they will sleep all day, meet with friends and go to another party. Beyond the Grave will become a distant memory. But others will wake up and hear birds singing for the first time, or how pretty the blue in the sky is. They look in the mirror and sense a future for themselves.
Spurgeon says about the new creation is, “How the Spirit of God openeth upon the mind, how it is that he renews the faculties and imparts fresh desires by which those faculties shall be guided, how it is that he enlightens the understanding, subdues the will, purifies the intellect, reverses the desire, lifts up the hope, and puts the fear in its right channel, we cannot tell, we must leave this among the secret things which belong unto God. Have you partaken of it? Do not merely look back to some hour in which you felt mysterious feelings. No, but judge by the fruits. Have your fears and hopes changed places? Do you love the things you once hated, and hate the things you once loved? Are old things passed away? Have all things become new? Christian brethren, I put the query to you as well as to the rest. It is so easy to be deceived here. We shall find it no trifle to be born again. It is a solemn, it is a momentous matter. Let us not take it for granted because we have given up drunkenness that we are therefore converted, because we do not swear, because now we attend a place of worship. There is more wanted than this. Do not think you are saved because you have some good feelings, some good thoughts. There is more required than this—ye must be born again. You must change the heart. It is not the skin—it is the blood—nay, deeper than the blood—the very essence of the nature must be altered. The man must be as much made anew as if he never had an existence. Nay, a greater miracle than this, these most be two miracles combined—the old things must pass away, and new things must be cleated by the Holy Ghost.”
The incorruptible seed of God was implanted into so many that night. History will tell the story of how in a moment a heart was changed. There is nothing more amazing than a new creation. They will spend the rest of their lives with many firsts. First prayer, first trial, first convert, first time reading Bible through and most amazingly first time they realize the love of God.