The book of Titus chapter 1 this
morning. Titus 1.9 We've been looking forward to
verse 9 and looking at it in advance because everything in
the context really can't be understood rightly without being understood with verse 9. Listen to this,
and every phrase of this is a sermon. Every phrase. Holding fast the
faithful word. as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine to do two things, exhort and convince those who disagree. Every phrase of sermon holding
fast. Does any of us truly hold fast
to the word of God? This means to cleave to and to
hold firmly. But the best way to understand
the use of this word here is to see how our Lord uses it,
because this word is only in the scriptures a few times. See
how our Lord uses it in Matthew 6.24. Turn there with me please. Matthew 6.24. We want to understand
what it is to hold fast the faithful word of God. Matthew 6.24. No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one
and love the other or else he will hold. There's our word. He will hold
to the one and despise the other. And there are only two masters
and you're only going to serve one of them. You cannot serve God and mammon. Our word here from our text,
the same word in this verse is synonymous with love. Do you see that here? It is used synonymously with
love. It is love, hate. It is holding
and despising. You hold on to the word of God
like you would your family, your wife, or your children. Who do
you love the most? You hold on like that. Well,
how do you hold them? How do you hold your family,
Chris? Well, I'll tell you how I hold them. I hold them this way. I never really let
go of them. Even when I'm not holding them,
I'm holding them. That's how. And that's what we're
talking about here with the Word of God. It's not just a document.
To this world, it's a good luck charm. But I understand now,
I compare this to family, purely in the general sense of love
alone, but there are different kinds of love. Christ, in the
verse we read, is using this word, synonymously with love,
but to describe how a person loves his God. You see that? You're going to love God or you're
going to love yourself. And this is talking about loving
God. And that's how we love this book.
I respect this book. I'm in awe of this book. I reverence
this book because it's God's book. And God is holy and reverent. You see that? It's a special
kind of love. And I trust this book. Love carries
trust with it, doesn't it? You can't really love somebody
you don't trust. I'm sorry, you just can't. And
this is, this book I know to be faithful and true because
God Almighty is faithful and true. And I, I trust this book
because God is Almighty. You see? And because He's faithful
and because He's true, I trust the Word of God. I trust my children's
souls with it. I trust the souls of those that
I love the most with the truth of this book. I bow to the truth
of this book. Why? Because God is king. God
is sovereign. This book is my hope because
God is gracious. This book is my comfort because
Christ is a refuge like no other. I love this book because he who
wrote it is altogether lovely, and it concerns him who is altogether
lovely. And what do we hold in fact,
what do we love? The faithful word. The word means trustee. That's what it means, trustee.
That's the first word in the definition of the word faithful,
trustee. Able to be relied upon. And this is important because
people look to it. A compass. You know, things can
go on the blink and it's not that big of a deal. If your television
set something wrong, you know, when I was young, there was always
something wrong with the TV and you had to beat on it a little
bit to get it to work right sometimes. But if it was off a little bit,
if it was, you know, a little static or something, oh well,
I didn't get to see my favorite show as well as I might have.
But if a compass is off, that's a real problem, isn't it? This book is the compass. That's a deadly thing if a compass
is off. And especially with regard to
the things dealt with in this book, spiritual things, the things
of God. How wonderful that we're able
to trust, to rely upon matters of eternal life and death. Especially
here, we need that which can be relied upon. Only the Word
can be relied upon. What are you going to rely upon
if you can't rely upon the verity of the Word of God? The veracity
of the Word of God? How can you trust what's contradictory? Religion is in a perpetual state
of contradiction. Did you know that? Have you recognized
that about religion and their Word? They'll say that God is
sovereign, but then they'll turn around and say, you have a free
will. They can't both be true, my friend. One or the other of necessity
is a lie. They'll say that salvation is
all of grace and then proceed to tell you what you need to
do to be saved. But this book, this book made
up of 66, what we call books written by 40 men, at least,
over a period of 1,500 years and very, very different types
of men. Isaiah was a prophet, but Simon
Peter was a fisherman. David was a shepherd and king.
Matthew was a tax collector. Paul was a great scholar and
a high official, but then a tent maker. But all proclaimed the
same message and wrote the same thing, just in different ways,
from different perspectives, in different manners. Diverse
manners at different times God has spoken But he's always spoken
to us by his son And this is because the Bible has but one
true author And it's author God forbids anyone to add to or take
away anything from the sayings of this book Now he forbids it
on punishment of eternal death Why because this is is the faithful
word. Revelation 22, 18, and 19. If
you take away anything from the words of this prophecy, God said,
I'll take away your name out of the book of life. And if you
add anything to it, he said, I'll add unto you all of the
plagues and curses that are written in this book. If anybody who
might presume to expound this book adds anything any thought
any interpretation That is not included and clearly revealed
in this book. Then you can't trust it This
is the trusty word and there is no other all you can trust
is what God said if anyone takes away from the clear truth of
this book And they do. For example, God said, Jacob
have I loved and Esau have I hated. If he said that, if God said
that, and he did, and then somebody says, well, that don't mean that,
then don't trust him. That doesn't mean hate, doesn't
mean hate. Well, you know what? I looked it up and you know what
it means? He means he hated him. He hated Esau. He despised him. He pursued him with hatred. If
God says, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and whom
I will, I will harden. And he did. And someone says,
that don't mean that, then don't trust them. God is able to say
what he means, and he means what he said. Religion will ignore
these truths entirely until somebody happens to actually read the
Bible And says to them, what about this? What about this?
They'll completely ignore it as long as they can. And then
when they just can't ignore it, and somebody just happens to
be reading the Bible one day, which is pretty rare these days
in religion especially, and says, well, what about this? Then they'll
say, well, that don't mean that. Effectively erasing the clear
declaration of scripture from the record of God. Don't trust
them. They're accursed of God. And there's no light in them
according to God. And I keep using the words plain and clear
for a reason. Plain, clear, what's clearly
revealed. What's revealed in this word
is clearly revealed. How can you trust that which
you don't understand? You can't trust that which is
contradictory. And you can't trust something
you don't understand. This is the faithful word. You
can trust it. Paul said, seeing we have such
hope. We use great plainness of speech. You can be plain when declaring
the faithful word. Otherwise it wouldn't be the
faithful word. But we can and we must be because it is itself
plain and clear. There is simplicity. There is
all inclusiveness in Christ. And those who hate him understand
very well. You can't hate what you don't
understand. At least in your head. And you can't trust. The
word could not be the trusty word. You could not embrace and
hold fast this word. And you won't until you understand
it in your heart. That's why it says he opened
their understanding. That they might understand the
scriptures. And when he did, what did they
do? They embraced the word. But more
to the point, they embraced Him. They said, Lord, don't leave
us. Stay with us. To embrace Him is to embrace
His Word. Now Paul is telling Titus to hold this Word in high
regard. He's telling us to hold it in
the highest regard. To love it. To thank God for
it. To never let go of it. Because
only this Word can be trusted. And only this Word can be trusted
regarding that which is a vital import This is the word of God. And these holy scriptures are
able to make a sinner wise unto salvation through faith which
is in Christ Jesus. These scriptures, God will use
them to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ
Jesus. The Pharisees knew the scriptures, but they wouldn't
come to Him. And so no salvation. When God
uses the scriptures to save your soul, It'll be through Christ
Jesus Second Timothy 3 15, but I want
you to look at Romans chapter 10 look at Romans chapter 10,
please Verse 13 Romans 10 13 Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him
in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in
him of whom they have not heard? Do you see what the word of God
is saying again here? You can't call on him unless
you know him, unless you understand, unless you believe. Faith is not blind trust, it's
trust. It's seeing trust. It's knowing
trust. Because it's the gift of God.
It's the fruit of His Spirit. He's the author and finisher
of it. And faith lays hold of a person. How shall they call
on Him in whom they have not believed?
And how shall they believe in Him of whom they've not heard?
How is anybody going to be saved unless somebody's preaching Christ?
That's why Paul said, we preach Christ. We have such hope. It's such vital and important
hope. It's the only hope for sinners and therefore we're very
clear about it. We're determined to preach nothing but Him. Because
only the message of Christ and what He did for sinners will
God use to save. And how shall they hear without
a preacher? How can I except some man should guide me? And
how should they preach? Except God send them. Somebody
not just going to wake up and decide they're going to be a
preacher and that be salvation for sinners. God's got to send
them. Because if they speak not according
to the word of this prophecy, if they've determined, if they
haven't determined to preach only Christ crucified, If they
do come, like Paul didn't, with the excellency of speech and
wisdom of words, God said it's because there's no light in them.
I didn't send them. And how beautiful are the feet
of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings
of good things. But they have not all obeyed
the gospel, For Isaiah saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?
In Isaiah's day, very few did believe. And Paul could have
said the same thing. You reckon we could say that
safely now? Relatively very few. Who hath
believed? Some. Not many. So then faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the faithful word the trusty word and you can trust
his word because you can trust him so the faithful word is God's
means of saving sinners in this world it is the faithful word
and we must be faithful in order to preach it that's verses six
through eight you can't be those things you can't be unfaithful
in the preaching of it because it's the faithful word And we must be faithful in the
preaching of it. Paul said, I must preach the
gospel. Woe unto me if I preach not the
gospel of Christ. That's what God does when he
raises somebody up. They can't help but. The word is trustee. The third
reason is this. You can't trust that which contradicts
itself. That rules religion out. That
rules the doctrines of men that are taught in our day. You can't trust that that you
don't understand. But this word is plain and faithful and true.
And here's something else. The word is trusty because it
reveals Him who is alone, the sinners trust. This is the most
important thing. Salvation is trusting, not so
much the word, but Christ. The living word. But in order
to trust Him, that's the end, that's the goal, that's salvation.
But there's a step, you've got to trust His word if you're going
to trust Him. Because how else are you going
to know Him? How shall they believe on Him? Of whom they've not heard. But it is believing on Him. The
Pharisees thought they had eternal life in their knowledge of the
Scriptures. But coming to Christ is life. You will not come to
me that you might have life. Christ is life. You see what
I'm saying? Salvation is trusting Christ as your righteousness.
And we see in this word that He is the only righteousness
of a sinner. He's the only righteousness,
period. To trust Him is to trust Him
as your sin offering. And we see Him here. God has
set Him forth, Paul said, to be a propitiation for our sins
through faith in His blood. We trust Him as our propitiation. We trust the person of Christ
as perfectly righteous, as the only righteous one, and as righteous
for me. Righteous as my representative
my right. He is the Lord our righteousness
We trust the efficacy of his precious blood Trusting his blood
Do we trust blood? Yes, we do Romans 3 24 being
justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus whom God has set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in his blood Do you trust His blood? How do you
know anything about His blood? This is a bloody book, isn't
it? From start to finish, it is a blood-drenched gospel. This just simply means we trust
Him as Redeemer. We know that His precious blood
is price enough to redeem from all of my sins. We trust Him
as Redeemer. We trust Him as Righteousness.
I have none of my own. There's only one Righteousness.
And it's the Righteousness of Christ. We trust Him as Sovereign. Is your God able to save you?
Yes, because He does as He pleases. His hand is not shortened that
it cannot save. Do you trust Him in that sense? Is your God able? He is able. Who do you trust? Christ? Do you trust Christ?
How do you trust Him? Well, I trust His trusty word,
that's how. As He hath been taught, Paul
said. as he hath been taught. A bishop
must hold fast the trusty word as he hath been taught. You can't
teach what you have not been taught. Now I'm still learning
with you. We learn together, don't we?
We're learning the word of God together. But before we can even
start, God's got to teach somebody. And this is God's way. You want
to hear how God teaches his word to sinners? And this is marvelous
now. This is marvelous. How? Why are we to hold fast to the
trusty word? This is God's way, 2 Timothy
2. Paul said to the young preacher Timothy, the things that thou
hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful
men who shall be able to teach others also. You see that? You see the carrying on of the
teaching in this one verse. There are four generations of
taught sinners. Paul taught Timothy. Timothy
is exhorted to teach others. So there's Paul, there's Timothy,
there's others. And then those others will be
able to teach others yet also. How many times did that have
to happen for you to be taught? For me to be taught? And it's
not just passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth.
It's the trustee word of God that we were taught. And that's
what we teach. And that's what others will teach
after we're gone. By God's grace and design and
providence. Isn't that beautiful? You know
why God does it that way? So all the glory will be His.
All of it. God uses just a few men in a
person's life to do this. Just a few. You think about that.
Paul taught Timothy the gospel. I wonder what other teachers
Timothy had. Maybe none. My dad and Jack Shanks
taught me the gospel of Christ. I say that without reservation.
God taught me, but he used them to do it. Two men. I've heard and learned some things
from other men, but just a few, just very, very few others, and
very little compared to what I learned from those two men. Who has God used to teach you? I thought about this, if it's
me, in any sense, in any way, even partially, What a sacred
trust that is. Do you see why God's preachers
tremble? Do you see why Paul said, who
on God's earth is sufficient for these things? This thing
is the savor of life and death to sinners. Who is sufficient
for that? Our sufficiency indeed is of God and Him alone. Who is Paul? Who is Apollos?
Nothing. Do you see why the bishop must
be somebody qualified and equipped by God himself? It's not about
him. It's about what God did. And
why he must be true to this faithful word. How vital and how consequential
this is. This is how God teaches. Do you
understand Isaiah 53? How can I? Except some man should
guide me. I didn't until some man guided
me. Did you? Did you just pick it up and say,
oh, that's Christ. He's talking about Christ. There's
the gospel. It didn't happen like that for
me. I thank God for those men that
guided me. because it was the very guiding
hand of God in my life, and the providence and grace of God Almighty,
thank God for them, that he may be able, that he may be able, only to the degree to which God
makes us faithful. causes us to hold fast to this
faithful word, will we be able to accomplish anything. Able by sound doctrine. By just sound doctrine. Pure teaching, true teaching. Teaching that holds up. Teaching that when you do what
the Bereans did. And look into the scriptures
to see if these things be so. What I say holds up. Because
it's just the word of God. That's all it is. It's that simple.
By sound doctrine. Not by arguing and debating.
Not by enticement. And not by threat. You're not
going to be able to do God's work by enticement, by promise
in heaven. And you're not going to be able
to do it by threatening hell. You're only going to be able
to do it, he said, by just teaching the faithful word of God as it
stands, as it's written, as it's revealed. The faithful word. And let me say this, not the
five points. Not by setting forth the five
points of Calvinism. The faithful word. Now, What
are commonly called the five points of Calvinism or the doctrines
of grace I believe to be true. Usually what men call those things
are true. Sometimes it's called that and
it ain't the truth. Generally speaking though it's
true to the word of God and I say generally speaking because that
which is concocted by men can be easily changed by men and
interpreted by men and not always faithfully. The Word of God itself
is not always faithfully declared either, but it's a whole lot
harder. You can't do that with any credibility because there's
the Word. It's kind of hard to ignore.
When people say God loves everybody, that's kind of blaring, isn't
it? The Word of God just won't let
that stand. The things concocted by men are a lot easier to pervert
and twist and dilute. And let me explain a little bit
about what I'm saying. I won't stay long on this because I know
most of you probably don't think about this much, but it is something
that I see a lot. If I set out to teach the five
points of Calvinism and use the word of God to support the five
points, am I teaching the word of God? Let me answer that for
you. No. This is subtle, but let me
just be plain about it. We must begin and end with the
Word of God, and everything in between must be the Word of God. I believe the Word of God teaches
the truths that are set forth in what typically are called
the doctrines of grace. But it doesn't teach them that
way, and this is important. If you start with the doctrines
of men, However, true they are you'll have the wrong perspective
if on the Word of God just simply expound the scriptures You know
people talk about You know, you got your hyper Calvinists and
your Calvinists and your Armenians and you're just whatever a hyper
Armenian is just just I Know what it is. It's a free will
Baptist. That's what it is And all and everything in between
that I And people talk about, well, we have to have a balanced
ministry. No, you don't. You just have
to preach the Word of God. If you preach in the doctrines
of men now, you'll have to balance that somehow. But you don't have
to do a balancing act just to declare what God said. It's just
plain. Some start with Scripture and
then go straight to the doctrines of men. And the word doctrine
is in our text, but that word doesn't mean what many people
think it means. Many would answer if you ask
them, what is sound doctrine? Can you give me an example of
sound doctrine? You know what they'd say? The five points of
Calvinism. That's what they'd say. That's
a wrong answer. That's not what I guarantee you
Paul wasn't talking about, the five points of Calvinism, when
he used the word doctrine right there. You reckon? And this highlights the problem.
And this is pretty clear in our text, and I'm probably making
it less clear. But sound doctrine is teaching that is done by someone
who holds fast the faithful word. Not by someone who holds to a
set of man-written, man-established stances upon what they call doctrine. If your doctrine is a statement
of biblical facts, then you've already strayed too far from
the Bible itself. And men who are prone to stray
from the scriptures at all are prone to stray farther and farther
from them. If your trust is in a set of
deductions based upon the Word of God, then pretty soon you'll
be deducing things that aren't even in the Word of God. You'll
find yourself, for example, sooner or later talking about what order
eternal things were done in, and such foolishness as that. Our doctrine is the faithful
word of God. The doctrinal treatises of men,
even believers, are not able to make you wise unto salvation,
but the faithful word is, the holy scriptures are. Let's stick to them, shall we?
Oh, may God make it so, because I'm prone just like everybody
else now to lean on the understanding, the wisdom of the flesh. And
you are too. Matthew 28, 18, Jesus came and
spake unto them saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and
earth. Go ye therefore. I love that. Don't you? He didn't say all
power is given unto you. It's given unto me. Now you go.
Where's the power? Not in me. And yet he sent me. and he sent you. But the sufficiency is of him. Go ye therefore and teach all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things. Teach
them what, Lord? What are we gonna teach them?
Whatsoever I have commanded you. Everything I've taught you, you
teach them. You see that? Calvin wasn't around when that
was said. And this is my favorite part,
I suppose. Lord, I'm with you. I don't want to go unless he's
with us. Do you? Even unto the end of the world,
not only am I with you, I'm always going to be with you. Thank God
for that. Amen. So be it. Now there are
two things that we're able to do. You see that in the last
part? That you may be able. Hold fast,
we're gonna have to, God's gonna make this right here such a treasure
to us that we never ever let go of it. It has a bearing on everything
we do and everything we think and everything we say. Hold it
fast. This word can be trusted because
the one who wrote it is the faithful one. Great is his faithfulness. And as we, by his grace, faithfully
set forth the faithful word, he'll make us able to accomplish
two things. And these are beautiful. They're
just beautiful. Everything God does now is beautiful. Everything
I do is shameful. But if God is doing this now,
it'll be obvious, won't it? You talk about beautiful. Two
things that we may be able to do, the scriptures are able,
and we able, as it says, if we stick to the scriptures as teachers.
Two things, exhort and convince. These are powerful things. Now the word exhort doesn't carry
over to the word gainsayers. Exhort is to be understood by
itself. We're not exhorting the gainsayers.
We're not exhorting and convincing the gainsayers. We're exhorting
and convincing the gainsayers. You can't exhort a gainsayer. Exhorting a gainsayer is a miserable
waste of time. The word exhort is very instructive
here. And as I said, it's a beautiful, wonderful thing. It means literally to call to
one side and admonish and comfort and
instruct. Now think about what this is
not. If I call you to my side, I say, come here, I've got something
that you need to know. There are some things that I
just can't be doing now. This is a beautiful word. You can't exhort according to
this word, exhort, if you're talking down to people. This ain't come to my feet, this
has come to my side. And that's vital, my friends. If you're beating people over
the head with the law or whipping them with the law, you're not
doing what this word's talking about. Or if you're just giving a public
address. This is not a cold public address where we stand back and
just deliver some facts and what will be, will be. No. Paul didn't deliver the gospel
that way. He said, My heart's desire and prayer to God is for
Israel that they might be saved. He said to a very wicked man,
I would to God that you were even as I am, except for these
bonds. Would to God he would save you.
This word exhort is very beautiful, isn't it? It's not just a cold announcement
of facts, and I've heard that, haven't you? I've heard that.
There's love in this word. Come here to my side. I have
something of great importance, and it's important to me to tell
it to you. That's what this word is. It can't be about numbers if
it's this kind of exhorting, can it? I'm calling every one of you
this morning to my side. There's quite a few of you here
this morning. But you can't call numbers to
your side, only people. And again, I say this a lot,
but I'm gonna say it again. God will never send you someone Let me be very clear and very
emphatic about this. God will never send you someone
that doesn't love you. Not a preacher. He won't send
you a preacher that doesn't love you. So if they don't, and that
should be pretty obvious, then God didn't send them. He might do that in judgment.
But if God is blessing his church, he's promised his church, I'll
send you somebody after my own heart. And it's the heart of God that
exhorts. You know what this word exhort means? This is how God
defines things. You know what exhort means here?
It's called on one side. Here's what it means. Come, let
us reason together, saith the Lord. That's a summoning to your side.
That's what his preachers do now. They come with the very
heart of God beaten in their chest. That's what God said.
In this sense now, in this context. Come and let us reason together,
saith the Lord. What about Lord? Well, we're
going to have to deal with your sins. But here's what we're going
to talk about. Not how bad they are. Let's talk about how they can
be white as snow. If we ever just see him, we'll
see something of the evil of our sins. But that's, the good
news is this. Your sins are gonna be white
as snow when you come to me. That's the word exhort. Come
now. Come now. Why now? Because this can't wait.
This can't wait, my friend. This can't wait. Oh. Come now. It's the heart of God that says,
come now and let us reason together. Come to my side. We must talk. We must talk about your sin,
but we won't talk about your sin without talking about how
it will be made whiter than snow. And we must convince the gainsayers. You know why? Not to prove that
we're right. What difference does that make?
What difference does it make if somebody goes to hell being
proven wrong? Would that be good with you? Would that set okay with you?
They still go to hell, but at least they knew you were right.
At least you out-argued them. We convince gainsayers so that
they're not gainsayers anymore. That's why you see that that's
what convincing them is if somebody's convinced then they're not gainsaying
anymore and Can eventually come to our side and we can exhort
them then not just to prove we're right I know quite a few men
who claim to be God's preachers, but you know what business they're
in just manifestly They're in the business of proving people
wrong. I and consigning to hell everyone as heretics that doesn't
agree with them. I'm not in that business by God's
grace. If you don't know as much as they do, you're a heretic.
Or more to the point, they don't take the same stances, you know.
Because that kind of knowledge is not the knowledge of God.
God hath made foolish the wisdom of this world. Listen to what
Paul said to Timothy here, and you tell me in what spirit. Is it the spirit of proving people
wrong and saying, okay, let's find out who the heretics are
and who the children of God are. Is that our purpose this morning?
Let's see who's right and who's wrong. Listen to what Paul said
to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 2, and I'm through. But foolish
and unlearned questions avoid. Don't argue about Where did Cain
get his wife? You know, just foolish and unlearnt
questions that don't have anything to do with the point. Do you
know what the point is? The point is Christ. You are
a sinner and Christ, God is holy and you need his son. You need
to be righteous before God and you need an offering for sin.
And Christ is your all in all, your only hope before God as
a sinner. Foolish and unlearned questions
avoid knowing that they do gender strifes, and we're not in the
striving business. The servant of the Lord must
not strive. Now this is important, because
they'll say, oh, well foolish and unlearned questions, gender
strifes, but we're supposed to strive about other things, about
important things. No, Paul said to Timothy, the
servant of the Lord must not. Strive. He must not argue. He must not debate. He must not
strive. But be gentle unto all men. Apt to teach. Do you see how
this describes both the exhorting and the convincing of the gainsayer? Both are done in this spirit.
Gentle, apt to teach. Not to prove. To teach. Patience and meekness instructing
those that oppose themselves. Now think about that part for
a second. They don't oppose you. They're not your enemy. They're
their own enemy. Can we see it that way? Now we have some enemies in this
world. But the deceived sinner Would
you kick a blind man because he's blind? Those that oppose themselves.
And why are we doing it? Why are we doing it? Well, to
prove them wrong, of course. If God, per adventure, will give
them repentance, They might just gainsay their
own gainsaying. You know that's what repentance
is? It's a complete turning around. It's a change of mind. When is
that going to happen? When God gives it to them. When
God gives it to them. To the acknowledging of the truth,
and that they may recover themselves. Once that happens, wouldn't it
be wonderful to see a sinner recovered out of the snare of
the devil? that's been taken captive at His will. Oh, if the
Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed, and we'll rejoice
with you, my friends. We will rejoice with you. So
may we in that spirit. They're their own worst enemy,
not mine. They oppose themselves, and look at what Satan has done
to them. It's their own fault. It's not Satan's fault. It's
their own fault. But how can we let them go? Can you let them
go? God couldn't let you go. When
we preach the gospel, we are committing those we love to the
Lord Jesus Christ. God just might give them repentance. He may or he may not, but we
know this, if he's gonna do it, we know how he'll do it, because
it pleased him by the foolishness of preaching. Hold fast the faithful
word. That's how God saves sinners
now. That's how he saves them. Oh, that he might grant repentance.
But we're committing them to him as we preach. We're committing
sinners to Christ, just as that woman did in Matthew 15, 22,
who cried unto the Lord Jesus Christ and said, Lord, have mercy
on me. Oh, Lord, thou son of David,
my daughter is grievously vexed with the devil. Wait a minute,
don't you mean have mercy on her? That's not what she said. Have mercy on me by doing something
for somebody else. Do you love anybody that much? When we care that much, Lord,
it would be a mercy to me if you would have mercy on her.
When we care that much, By God's grace, we will be faithful ministers
of the Word of God. May God make it so. Let's pray
together.