Norwich bulletin., 1909-03-15
EVANGELIST LUTHER BREACHES
 ON EVERY5oDYs NECESSITY.
Services Will Continue Through This
 Week at the First Baptist Church.

At the First Baptist church Sunday morning, Rev. c. c. Luther delivered a strong sermon upon Everybody's Ne cessity, John S:3-5-7, Jesus answered and said unto him, Verify, verify, l say unto thee, except man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. He said:
 I would press your immediate at tentiOn to a proper recognition of and wise action upon this divine statement of fact as a great eternal and univer- sal necessity of the human soul. The naughty Pharisee, Nicodemus, came to Jesus by night, not necessarily through cowardice, but in order to more surely secure an uninterrupted interview with the Great Teacher.
 Christ met him at once with the emphatic declaration that to enter or even see the Kingdom of God, he must be born again. Christ's reply was de- cidedly and designedly surprising. Christ had not only chosen the ground upon which he would converse with this Master in Israeli but in partic- ular dogmatic form had laid down the great fundamental doctrine of the gos- pel-that to every one of Adams race there must be the beginning of life anew in relation to God to enter His Kingdom.
 The very emphatic form of this di- vine statement also makes these words weighty in their bearing upon the question of the souls salvation. Three times in almost successive verses stands this sharp, clear statement of truth. Each time it is made upon the personal authority of the Lord Jesus.
 TO the class of sinners to which Nic- odemus belonged-the cultured, mor- al, outwardly upright and formally rFr~f1 from Gods word is more unpalatable or more needed This is because of the heavy blow they give to human pride, to human learning and philosophy, to unregenerate hope of every age and class and kind.
 The human soul, yielding itself to the working of the Holy Spirit in re- pentance and faith, in the divine prom ise finds itself begotten anew in Christ Jesus and rising in newness of life. For this there is the absolute neces- sity of new birth. and hence Christ did not say "Ye shall not" but can not"
 Evangelist Luther gave a briefly summarized chain of reasoning, as follows:
 l. The Kingdom of God is a spir- itual one, inhabited by spiritual be- ings, who, other than God. are ere
 
 have a spiritual beginning or birth.
 1T. The kingdom of God is a holy one inhabited by holy beings in har- mony with him. But the carnal or natural mind is unholy-even enmity to God. Imperfection and wicked op- position to God are it's chief charac- teristics. Before this imperfection come into harmony with God, there must be a change in it-nothing short of a new birth.
 IT. No life has power to reproduce other than it's kind or to change its nature. There is not only no tenden- cy, there is no power in sin to become holiness, or in flesh to become spirit and that is what Jesus meant when he said That which is born of the flesh Is flesh. and that which is born of the spirit is spirit"
 w. All souls by nature are declared to be dead in trespasses and sins They have no spiritual capacity and no amount of reformation or cultivation can alter this sad condition.
 @ If these dead ones ever become alive; if sinful, flesh life ever becomes spiritual holy, Godlike, 1t must be by the importation of new life from with out itself and by a power other than and above itself
 (3) This power must be found alone in Him who is at once its Author. Head and Type, and this the Scriptures plainly teach and this power Christ claimed for Himself.
 He. who Himself begotten of God born from above furnished in Himself this head and type of the new life and the new order of beings, in whom God dwells, here lays down the divine and eternal law that to be fashioned like Him, to have part in that life sin- ful men of every grade and class must be born again.
 The services continue this week with chalk talks in the afternoon. His topic tonight is Sin: It's Ruin and Remedy, chemically illustrated.