“The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” John 3:8
The wind blows and we have no idea from where it came or where is it going, you just feel the breeze of the air blowing. The same is with the Holy Spirt, He comes from somewhere, touches a lost soul and goes elsewhere. This is a glorious contrast by the Lord, salvation is of the Lord and comes from nowhere by the Holy Spirit. Look at Saul of Tarsus, one moment he is persecuting the church and the next as he was chasing them toward Damascus when Jesus stopped him and saved his wicked soul. This man Nicodemus who was a “ruler of the Jews” hated Jesus as much as Saul of Tarsus did. Nicodemus came to Jesus by night because he was ashamed to be seen with him. This hatred that these men had for Jesus was the “doctrine of the Jews” it is their own teaching not the Old Testament. God never teaches hate, God teaches love. “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” 1 Corinthians 13:13 God also said there is not greater love than for a man to lay down his life for another Christian. “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. (13) Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:12 – 13 God’s love to us is shown by the very fact that God’s own Son died for every believer. “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” 1 John 3:16 It is this word “perceive” that means we “know” the love of God because Jesus Christ died for us by God own will. Therefore, hate is not Christian, it is not ever to be extended to those that hate us or despitefully use us. “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;” Matthew 5:44 So the hate that the Jews had and have for Christians is not godly, it is evil and intolerance in their evil hearts. Both of these men, Saul of Tarsus and Nicodemus came to Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit, neither ever thought they would ever be called Christians. When Jesus told Nicodemus “…Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” He meant he must be born of God from above, people are not born of their own free will or by choice or decision. In John 3:5 Jesus was saying you are born of God like your natural birth, God births by the power of the Holy Spirit. God gave the churches one order, to preach the gospel to the world, God never ordered the churches to bargain, plead, trick, or to beg people to come to Christ. We have nothing to do with the birthing process, we are only to preach the gospel and the Holy Spirit does the rest.
The Holy Spirit work in mysterious ways, we never know where He is working or where He will go next. He is compared to the unseeable wind that comes and goes as God ordained. Let us remember the story of the dry bones in Ezekiel 37:1-14 When the prophet saw a valley full of dead bones; he prophesied to the dry bones, but the Spirit came and gave the bones life. The gospel is just words, no power, and no saving ability without the power of the Holy Spirit, but we never know when He is going to save a lost soul, therefore we preach to the world. Nicodemus, Saul of Tarsus, and all other religious Jews believed the same Satanic produced doctrine, that hating and killing Christians was Godly. However, by the power of God and the workings of the mysterious Holy Spirt both Nicodemus, and Saul of Tarsus, where saved because Jesus spoke to them and the Holy Spirt saved them. We never know from where He will come, when He will come, but we do know if a lost sinner is saved then He has been here working His power of life giving.
Let me conclude with these words, “But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. (11) For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. (12) Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.” 1 Corinthians 2:10 - 12
