I DIRTY DOG DOUBLE DARE YOU

By Curtis Pugh

When I was a boy and we wanted to emphasize a dare – one that could not be ignored – we would say, “I dirty dog double dare you” to do or say this or that. The purpose of such a title is to try and get folk to study their Bibles. The dare is this: to find a single verse in the Bible that says that the new birth is caused or brought to pass by an act of the sinner's will.

Previously a $100.00 reward has been offered to anyone who can provide such a verse. No one attempted to claim that money. Nor do we think anyone will take up this dare successfully. The Bible just does not say that there is anything that a sinner can do in order to cause the new birth.

In fact the Bible teaches just the opposite. It tells us the cause behind those who welcomed Christ when He was on earth as being the new birth. It says of them, “Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God,” (John 1:13). Believers believe that verse though they may not fully understand it. Others may argue with it or try to because they think they were born again because they did something that caused God to regenerate them – that is, to birth them from above.

The Bible teaches that there is absolutely nothing that a unregenerate person can do to please God. His praying does not please God. His “going forward” does not please God. His sincerity does not please God. His crying does not please God. His “making a decision for Christ” does not please God. The proof is found in Romans 8:7-9: “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.”

The first verse quoted above says that the new birth is not “of the will of may, but of God.” Paul wrote, “For he [God] saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy,” (Romans 9:15-16). Only sinful human pride thinks that an act of the lost sinner's will can bring spiritual life – the life of the new birth. The Bible certainly does not teach such a thing.

Lost sinner, you are forced to this place: you are shut up to the fact that if God does not birth you by His Spirit you shall remain dead in your sins. Cast yourself on Him!