Well, it certainly is a delight
and a blessing for me to be able to be with you. If you would
open your Bibles with me to the book of Titus, chapter 3. Bring
greetings from your brethren in Ashland at Hurricane Road. We think of you and pray for
you often. Now this evening, I want to look
at six Vital truths, that's the title of the message, six vital
truths. These truths are bedrock truths,
bedrock, unmovable, unshakable truths. They give an unshakable
foundation in a very turbulent and changing world. These truths,
these six truths are so central to the gospel, it's impossible
to preach the gospel without preaching these six things. And
it's impossible to believe the gospel without believing these
six truths. So I hope that the Spirit will
enable us to pay close attention and enable us to believe and
cling to these truths. The first vital truth is this,
man's total depravity. When Adam sinned in the garden,
every son of Adam sinned. You and I sinned in Adam when
Adam sinned. That's how we were made sinners,
and we're born with a nature of sin that can do nothing but
sin. I'll tell you what that means
is this. We can't do something to earn salvation, because everything
that we do is sinful. We can't even do something to
get God to save us, because everything that we do is sin. Look here
at verse one of Titus chapter three. Put them in mind. to be subject to principalities
and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work,
to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers but gentle, showing
all meekness unto all men. Now why does Paul tell Titus
here to, you implore people, you teach them, put them in mind
to be meek people. Meek people are people that don't
speak evil of others. The gist of what Paul was meaning
there is teach them to be people that don't look down on other
people. Why shouldn't believers look
down on other people? Why shouldn't we vilify and make fun of the
ignorance of unbelievers? Well, I'll tell you why. We got
the exact same nature they do. That's why. All men are born
with a totally depraved nature. And let's not forget, that includes
you and me. That's the nature that every person is born with,
whether you're a believer or an unbeliever, you still have
this totally depraved nature, a nature that's ruined in the
fall of Adam. It's a foolish nature. Look at
verse three. For we ourselves also are sometimes
foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures,
living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. Paul
describes our nature It's a foolish nature. It's a nature that doesn't
have any spiritual understanding. It has no spiritual wisdom. You
know, it is no wonder that people in false religion do so many
crazy things in an effort to please God. I know why they don't.
They don't have any understanding. They don't have any understanding
of who God is. They don't have any understanding
of who man is. They have no understanding of how God saves sinners. You
and I didn't either until God taught us. So don't make fun
of them. Pity them. The only reason we're
not right there with them is God's grace. Then Paul describes
our nature as disobedient. Not only are we disobedient to
God's law. You know the other place we're
so disobedient? We're disobedient to God's remedy for sin. God
tells us to bow, and we don't. God tells us to believe on Christ.
God says to bow and beg for mercy, and we don't. By nature, no man
will repent of his self-righteousness. No man will bow to Christ. Paul
said, not just his Jewish brethren, but all of us, by nature, are
going about to establish our own righteousness and will not
submit to the righteousness of Christ. Now, we ought to be able
to understand that. That's the nature that we still
carry around with us. But don't make fun of the legalist. Pity
him. The only reason we're not right
there being so judgmental and so like what Brother Henry used
to say, straight as a gun barrel and twice as empty, is God's
grace. Then Paul describes our nature
as deceived. And we certainly are deceived,
like Satan deceived Eve, but the word means more than that.
It means to wander. Now that's what we've done. We've wandered away from God. and have no concept of trying
even to get back to God. Not only do we not know the way
back to God, we don't have any desire to go back to God. We've
wandered away from God and we like it that way because we've
been deceived by sin. We've been deceived by Satan.
Well, don't make fun of folks that wander out into left field.
Pity them. The only reason we're not right
there with them, still lost and wandering away from God, His
Christ, the good shepherd, came to seek and to save that which
was lost. And he got the job done. That's what he did. Then
Paul says, this is our nature. It's a totally depraved nature.
It serves diverse, different lusts and pleasures. Just all
the lusts and pleasures of the flesh. Now, I know what immediately
comes to mind when you hear that is sexual sins. And it certainly
includes that. But I tell you, it includes something
far worse. It's this flesh trying to get
some credit for salvation. Now that is sin. The biggest
lust of our flesh is self-righteousness. Trying to earn something from
God. Nothing brings this flesh more pleasure than self-righteousness. That's the biggest pleasure of
this flesh. And I tell you what, nothing
keeps us from Christ but self-righteousness. The only sin that will damn a
man is self-righteousness. He will not bow to Christ. And
we all know the self-righteous, but don't make fun of them. Pity
them. The only reason we're not, I
would say not right there with them, but the leaders of the
pack is this very fact. It's God's grace. Let's not look
down our nose at them. You know, The believer knows
that we've got no room to look down our nose at them. We who
are supposed to know better, we who have been taught better,
still show our self-righteousness far too often, don't we? We've
got no reason to look down at them. When we do, that's the
nature of Adam that's in us. And then Paul says our nature,
this is a depraved, fallen nature. It's full of malice and envy. It's a nature that's born hating
God. The people say, oh, I don't hate
God. I know you don't hate the God of your mind and your imagination,
but you hate the God of this book, the God who's sovereign
over all, the God who'll do with you as he will, and whatever
he does is right and just. That's the God we hate, the God
that we must bow to, the God to whom we have to do. And we're envious. We're jealous
of his glory. We're jealous of his crown rights
to rule over us. That was Adam's problem in the
garden. He wanted to be God. He wanted to make the rules.
He thought if he ate that fruit, he'd know good and evil. He thought,
not just that he knew the difference, he thought he could choose and
be God. You and I got the same problem. We want to be God. We
hate God, and we hate others. We're jealous of something. Anything
anybody else has that we don't, we're jealous of it. And I tell
you, when we become unforgiving and hypercritical of others,
is when we forget our own sin nature, that whatever somebody
else is doing, we're exactly like them. Exactly like them. Now that is our fallen, depraved
nature. And I hope that you see from
that, I mean, we could talk about this for hours and hours, our
depraved nature, but we have to move on. But this is why I
want you to be able to gather, at least from this much, Our
nature can't do anything to produce salvation, can it? All it can do is produce sin.
Now look at verse 4, Titus 3. But after that, the kindness
and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of
righteousness, which we've done, but according to his mercy, he
saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost,
which he shed on us abundantly. through Jesus Christ, our Savior. Now, Paul makes it sound like
there, that there's some hope for sinners, doesn't he? And
there is. There is hope for sinners, but
not by our works. It's all a good hope through
God's grace, which is given us in Christ Jesus. And that brings
me to the second vital truth. There is redemption in the blood
of Christ. There's full, free redemption
in the blood of Christ. This is what God promised all
through the Old Testament. He promised salvation by the
blood. By the blood, by the blood, by
the blood, by the blood. There's blood everywhere, isn't
there? Blood everywhere. Salvation is in the blood of
Christ. It's not in our obedience to
the law. There's salvation in the sacrifice of another. who
come in our place, in our room, in our stead, and be our substitute,
and pay for our sin. Because we can't pay for it.
Because we can't keep God's law. God gave us the Old Testament
that's just full of pictures of that. Animal sacrifices that
were required by the law. How many rivers of blood did
those high priests shed? Yet that animal blood never put
away one sin, did there? Not one. But then one day, the
day you just sung about, One day Christ appeared. And when
He appeared, oh, everything's different, isn't it? Everything's
different. When He appeared, we saw God's kindness. We saw
God's love personified. And this word Paul uses, kindness,
it means gentleness and goodness, but it means something better
than that. It means usefulness. The Son of God appeared in human
flesh. Now there's a useful man. This
man is useful. This man appeared and he was
obedient to God's law. He obeyed it perfectly. And that's
the obedience he gave to his people. That's imputed to his
people because when he obeyed the law, they obeyed it in him.
See, we can't keep the law, but Christ did. Our nature is to
pray, his isn't. He is holy and he kept the law
for his people and he freely gives his righteousness and his
holiness to his people. Now I ask you, what's more useful
than that? What's more useful than that?
I bet at this time of year everybody knows somebody. I unfortunately
have become this guy What are you going to buy this
guy for a Christmas present? I mean, he just doesn't really
need anything. I'd like to get him something
that's useful. What's more useful than the righteousness
of Christ? What's more useful than the gift
of God's Son? Oh, this man, he's useful. He
gave himself, body and soul, to be the sacrifice for his people.
And unlike all those animal sacrifices, this sacrifice was successful.
He put away all of the sin of all of God's elect by one sacrifice. One sacrifice for sin forever,
and then what did he do? He sat down on the right hand
of God. Because the work was done. He was successful. This
man is so useful, he can bear the weight all of the sin of
all of his people at one time. You and I can't bear the weight
of our sin individually. Christ bore all of the sin of
all of his people. A number none of us can count.
He bore it all in one place at one time. He bore it away forever. This man's useful. He's useful
because his blood is perfect. That's what makes his blood able
to blot out the sin of his people. It's perfect blood, sinless blood.
Now again, what's more useful for a guilty sinner than having
your sin blotted out so that you're made not guilty? When Christ appeared, now we
see God's love. Now we see it. We saw, oh yes,
God loves sinners. He must love sinners. Look what
he did to his son to save him. Oh, he must love sinners. Herein
is love, not that we love God, but he loved us. It sent His
Son to be the propitiation for our sin. In order to be the propitiation
for our sin, the Son of God had to be slaughtered. And that's
what the Father did to Him. Because the sin of His people
must be put away. You know, if sinners would be
saved, the Son of God had to appear in the likeness of human
flesh. We don't have any concept of
how humiliating that was for him. How far down the Son of
God came, the glory of heaven, how far down he came to be a
man, to be flesh and blood just like us. And he endured that
humiliation because he loves his people. See, by man came
sin. By the first Adam, the first
representative man came sin. Well, by man, by a second man,
a second representative man, must come righteousness. And
that's why Christ came. He's so useful. He's able to
undo everything Adam did to his people. That's useful. But sinners
are to be saved. The Son of God must be made sin
for them. He has to take their sin away
from them. Now Christ had to make his people righteous by
his obedience to the law, but he also has to be sacrificed
to pay for their sin. And if becoming flesh was humiliating
and horrible to him, how horrible was it to his holy perfect nature
to be made sin? The body that the father prepared
for him rebelled at the thought of it. I don't know how it happened. Blood started pouring out, coming
out of his pores, just flowing backwards, doing something. His
body was rebelling at just the thought of being made sin. He
suffered at the thought of it. Didn't think how he suffered
to put it away. In those three hours of darkness,
how his soul suffered. His body suffered like you and
I can't imagine. And I don't think even in glory
we'll have any understanding the depths of his soul suffering.
How he suffered to put away the sin of his people. And he did
it willingly because he loves his people. The son of God himself,
life personified, had to die. Now there's a miracle. Life died
to satisfy the Lord's last demand. There must be death for sin. That's what he endured for his
people. Can you doubt he loves his people?
Can there be any doubt? We would do well to remember
that the next time. The day is dark. It's stormy,
difficult, and painful. We do well to remember the love
God had changed. He loves his people. He proved
it in the sacrifice for them. The Lord Jesus Christ is so useful
that his life, his death, his resurrection purchased the redemption
of an untold number of sinners. He redeemed them. He bought them
back from the law. He set them free from sin by
his blood. by his blood. There's redemption
in the blood of Christ in nothing. What can wash away my sin? Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. Nothing but Christ's blood can
pay our sin debt. But this is a vital truth of
the gospel. The father sent his son to shed
his blood, to put away the sin of his people. All right, here's
a third vital truth. The new birth. Regeneration by
the Holy Spirit. At the end of verse five, Paul
calls it the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.
Now you notice back up there, where was it? Now I've lost it, hang on just
a second. Yeah, verse five, not by works of righteousness as
we've done, but according to his mercy, he saved us. God did all of the saving. He did it all, he did the choosing,
He did the redeeming. He did the calling. He did the
new birth, the giving of life. He did the keeping. He saved
us. God did all of the saving. And
here Paul's specifically talking about the washing of regeneration.
And what he's talking about is being born again. Now regeneration
does not happen by washing in H2O, in baptism, in a baptismal
pool. Baptism doesn't save a sinner.
Baptism is a confession of what's already happened. Baptism is
a confession what the Lord already did for me. The pool, the water
in the pool is a picture. God saved me by the death, the
burial, and the resurrection of Christ. The water in the pool
doesn't wash away sin. It's just a confession. This
is how God saved me. This is how I identify with Christ.
But scripture frequently uses water as a picture of the Holy
Spirit. Pure water can wash away the
filth of the flesh. Well, the Holy Spirit washes
away the filth of the soul, the filth of sin from the soul. Now,
I'll tell you how he does it, by causing a new man to be born,
a new man who never existed before, a brand new man. Now, Paul talks
here about the renewing of the Holy Ghost. Now, don't misunderstand
that. That does not mean that the new birth is the renewing
of the old man, the renewing of the flesh. The new birth is
not the flesh somehow getting some spiritual light and spiritual
life. That can't be so. If that were
so, that would mean our flesh is not totally depraved, wouldn't
it? It would mean there's still some
hope for life in our flesh. If the flesh could be renewed
into spiritual life, then we really didn't die in Adam. We
just kinda, you know, got sick in Adam. We didn't die in Adam.
And that can't be true. Remember what our Lord told Nicodemus? That which is born of the flesh
is flesh. Nicodemus, it'll always be flesh. It'll never be anything
but dead, sinful flesh. So the renewing that Paul's talking
about here is a refreshing. It's the strengthening of the
new man. the new man, through the preaching of the gospel.
See, that's how the new man continually feeds and is refreshed. It's
by the preaching of Christ. But we have to be born again
with a new nature that can be renewed, that can be refreshed
by the gospel. The flesh is never refreshed
by the gospel, is it? We've got to be born again. We've
got to be born again with a new nature because our first nature
is ruined. It's ruined in sin. Adam ruined
it. Now something that is ruined, it can't be fixed up. It can't
be remodeled. You've got to throw it away.
You've got to throw it away. You've got to start over. And
that's what the new birth is. The new birth is a new man. He's
born with a different nature than the old man. The new man
is born from a different seed. He's born from a different father.
He's born from the holy seed of his father. And it's that
new man, when this clay prison finally dies, it's that new man
who's gonna be separated, set free from this clay prison, and
it's the new man that's gonna enter into glory. You're gonna
lay the flesh in the ground, and the new man is gonna go be
with God. Now we cannot make ourselves
be born again any more than we can make ourselves be born the
first time. The new birth is something that the Holy Spirit
sovereignly gives to whom He will, when He will. Isn't that
what our Lord told Nicodemus? That when both were enlisted,
so was the Holy Ghost. He moves where He will. Now don't
miss this. The work of the Holy Spirit is
just as important in salvation as the work of the Father and
the work of the Son. In order for a sinner to be put
away, or to be saved, The Lord said we must be born again, we
must be. Now, the salvation of a sinner
is a complicated thing, so complicated only God can do it, but yet it's
very simple. In order for a sinner to be saved,
our sin's got to be put away, doesn't it? It's got to be paid
for, it's got to be blotted out, we have to be made not guilty.
But if a sinner is made not guilty, and we're not given a new nature,
I know how it is with you, I'll use myself as an example. If
I was made not guilty, but I wasn't given a new nature, a nature
that cannot sin, like that I'd make myself guilty all over again.
Wouldn't you? So we have to have our sin put
away by the blood of Christ, and we must be given a new nature,
a nature that cannot sin, and that's the nature God the Holy
Spirit gives in the new birth. See, that's why I said there
cannot be any salvation without the new birth. The work of the
Father, the work of the Son, and the work of the Holy Spirit
are all necessary in salvation. And there is the new birth by
the work of God the Holy Spirit. All right, here's the fourth
vital truth. Salvation is by grace. Paul says in verse six, which
he shed on us abundantly. through Jesus Christ, our Savior,
that being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according
to the hope of eternal life. Look back a few pages, 2 Timothy
1, chapter 9. Or chapter 1, verse 9, excuse
me. Salvation is by grace alone. It's by grace alone, it's by
grace alone, it's by grace alone. We just can't say that once too
often. 2 Timothy 1, verse 9. who has saved us, and called
us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. Grace is God giving us what we
do not deserve. So salvation cannot be something
us sinners did to deserve it, can we? Salvation by grace means
that God gives His people something they do not deserve. He saves
them by His grace. He washes them in the blood of
His Son. He gives them not what they deserve,
but what Christ deserves. He gives them not what they earned,
but what Christ earned for them. Now, we have not been obedient
to God for one second of our lives. We haven't earned any
righteousness. then why does God call his people
righteous? If we haven't earned any righteousness,
if we haven't been righteous, if we haven't been obedient to
God, why does God accept his people and call them righteous?
Now God only calls something what it really is. God calls
his people righteous because that's what Christ made them.
He earned that for them by his obedience to the law. And the
only thing we've ever deserved by any of our works is eternal
damnation. Well, why won't God damn his
people? Why will God say to some people, to those on his right
hand, enter into the kingdom prepared for you? Why will he
say that to them? Because he poured out his wrath against
their sin on their substitute at Calvary. Justice has already
been satisfied for their sin. They already died in the person
of their substitute. That's grace. Can anything be
more gracious than God giving the likes of you and me what
his son earned? That's grace. And believers love
grace. I don't care where you find them.
I don't care what language that they speak. Believers love to
sing of grace. Amazing grace, how sweet to sound. Grace is a charming sound, harmonious
to the ear. It was grace that kept me to
this day, and it's grace will not let me go. Saved by grace
alone, this is all my plea. Jesus died for sinful men, and
Jesus died for me. Salvation is all of grace, from
beginning to end. It's all of grace. Here's the
fifth final truth. God's elect have a good hope.
Verse six. or verse 7, that being justified
by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of
eternal life. Now the believer's hope of eternal
life is an expectation. It's an expectation. It's not
like I hope it won't rain tomorrow. That's like I don't know if it
will, I don't know if it won't. The believer's hope is an expectation. I expect it. You know why? God
promised it. Christ earned it. It's an expectation.
The believer has a good hope, this is an expectation, because
God has already shed his grace abundantly on us through the
Lord Jesus Christ. The believer's hope is an expectation
because God has made us heirs. That's what Paul calls his believers
here, heirs. We're joint heirs with Christ. An heir receives an inheritance. Now inheritance is something
Somebody didn't earn, somebody else earned it. But somebody
else promised to give it to them for whatever reason. Well, that's
God's people, they're heirs. They're heirs of salvation that
we have in Christ and every believer will have that inheritance. Look
over at 1 Peter 1. Years ago in my family, I'm not even exactly sure of
the whole story, but somebody way back in the Tate family went
up in the attic and found this old clock. My grandfather fixed
it up somehow. It's a neat clock. It was decided
at that time that clock would be handed down from father to
son, the oldest son in the family. It went to my father and it came
to me. Everybody kind of knew that someday
this was going to be my clock. We had family come in for a visit. You know how it is, the family
comes in, they pull up in the driveway and all the men and
boys go out and start bringing in luggage, right? We bring it
up the stairs and set it up there and get ready to carry it back
to the bedrooms. picked up two suitcases. He was
going real fast, you know, and his shoulder bumped the shelf
that this clock was made before the Civil War. Knocked that shelf,
knocked that clock up in the air. It fell down and just broke. I mean, it was just, you know,
and everybody's, you know. And selfishly, my immediate thought
was, well, there goes my inheritance, you know. Long story short, my dad just
went and hugged me and said, don't you worry about that. That's
just a thing. He was able to get the clock fixed up. But I
tell all that, I say this. You may have an inheritance that
means something to you, and you ain't going to get it. Something
could happen. Not a joint heir with Christ. Look here at 1 Peter
1, verse 2. Elect, according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father, through sanctification of the spirit, unto obedience,
and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, Grace unto you
in peace be multiplied. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy
hath begotten us again into a lively, living hope by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that's incorruptible,
it's undefiled, and it fadeth not away, reserved in heaven
for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.
ready to be revealed at the last time. If you believe Christ,
your inheritance, you can't mar it. It's incorruptible, it's
undefiled, it fadeth not away, and it's reserved in heaven for
you. And God will give it to you when it's time. God will
give it to you. It's a good hope, and you can
expect to receive it. That's not presumption. God said
he'd do it. That's faith, isn't it? All right,
now here's the sixth vital truth put back in our text. Salvation in Christ produces
good works. Verse 8, this is a faithful saying,
and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that
they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain
good works. These things are good and profitable unto men.
Now, believers are careful to maintain good works. And let's
just be sure we know what a good work is. A good work is not something
that we do that is without sin, or has less sin in it than something
else that we do, because everything we do is mixed with sin. Good
works are works of faith and love. They're not works that
we do to try to make God happy with us, so that God will save
us, or to make us more savable, or to make God more happy with
us than he is with one of our brethren. Good works are done. out of the heart of Thanksgiving,
because God has already saved us. And there are works that
are done to serve others for the glory of Christ. Remember
that woman who came with the alabaster box of ointment and
broke it on our Lord's feet, and everybody there was so upset? And he said, you leave her alone.
She's done a good work, a good work on my body, anointing me
for the burial. That's the only time I know of
our Lord called anything a good work. It was a work done on his
body out of faith for him. Good works are washing the feet
of the disciples. It's refreshing them by their
kindness. When they have a need, do it
for them. That's a good work. Good works
are simply this. It's being faithful to serve
the Lord in whatever capacity the Lord's given you. Not doing
it so you'll get any notice, but just doing it for the good
of others. If God has enabled you to do something, this is
my advice to you. If God has enabled you to do something,
and you wonder, should I do that or should I not do that? Do it.
Just do it. Just do it. If God has enabled
you, do it. And if you do, you'll be profitable
to men. Our gospel is profitable to men.
We who believe the gospel ought to be profitable. We ought to
be profitable to each other, to help each other out. But now
don't get this backwards. It's salvation that produces
good works, not the other way around. Good works don't produce
salvation. Salvation produces good works. Salvation's impossible because
of anything that we do, because we can't do anything good. But
a salvation that does not produce good works, that's not salvation. It's just as wrong. God's salvation
produces a new man. He loves God, he has faith in
Christ, and that faith acts every time. You cannot separate faith
and conduct. If God put faith in your heart,
it'll leak out on you by what you do. Good works are produced
by faith. Now that's the gospel. that the
scriptures teach, and any message that does not include those six
vital truths is not the gospel. And I pray that the Lord give
us faith, faith to believe Christ. And if we believe Him, we'll
believe these truths and cling to them. All right, I hope that'll
bless you. I appreciate you having me.