Open your Bibles with me to Titus
2, verse 11. I miss seeing Brother Henry Mahan. I was looking so forward to seeing
him. It's so wonderful to see Doris. I'll tell you all a true
story. When I first met Brother Henry,
I sat in front of his desk, me and Tommy Robbins together. I
was in a meeting up in Chapmansville, West Virginia. And we drove down and it was in October.
And we went down to visit Henry. And I'd met him once before when
I was Somewhere and we went in just to meet him because I didn't
know he's still alive and somebody told me yeah He's got a church
right over here on in Asheville on 13th Street, and I was in
Portsmouth, Ohio So he drove over there and I met him the
first time And he called me chubby and he handed me a book by a
racist Bonar Called God's way of peace. He said you read that
and you'll learn the gospel so I took it home and read it and
read it and then back up there and he said, now I want this
back because this is a leather bound copy, real nice copy. But anyway, went down there that
October and I remember sitting in front of his desk and I was
talking and I said, I know it's the grace of God or the gospel
soaked in our tears. Henry leaned across that desk
and said, It's just the gospel whether you ever shed a tear
or not. And he says, you can't talk out of both sides of your
mouth. Either you're going to preach grace or you're going
to preach works. He says, you're going to have to, can't speak
out of both sides of your mouth. Man, I'm telling you, what that,
and I bless the day that he told me that. I could not tell you
how many times over the years I thank God for that day. Because
I would have, I would have just went ahead and mixed it up, but
God used Henry that day. He came down to the priest's
force a few months later, and I found a picture the other day,
the first meeting he was in at our place, sitting in a chair,
with the doors, you know, everything's changed there now. But he was,
I remember that, he was young and black-headed, a lot younger
than I am now. Thank God for men who are honest
and true and, you know, He told me the truth whether He ever
saw me again or not. And I bless God for that. Well,
let me read four verses of Scripture here. Titus 2.11, For the grace
of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching
us that denying all ungodliness
and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly
in this present world, looking for that blessed hope and the
glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ,
who gave Himself for our sin, gave Himself that He might redeem
us from all iniquity and purify unto Himself a peculiar people,
zealous of good works. The title of my message this
morning is Grace Our Schoolmaster. Grace Our Schoolmaster. For the
grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching
us. Teaches us something. The grace of God teaches us something. And here we're standing between
the two appearings of our Lord Jesus Christ. His first appearing
in verse 11. For the grace of God hath appeared.
Where did the grace of God appear at? It appeared in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ. The law came by Moses. And His
second appearing there in verse 13, looking for that blessed
hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus
Christ. Standing between His first appearing,
looking forward to His second appearing. Standing between these
two glorious appearings of our Lord Jesus Christ. And if you
have been made to know Him and what He accomplished in His first
appearing, then you've got a blessed hope looking for the second appearing.
And now you are looking for it too. You're looking for the Lord
to come. And this grace teaches us something.
It's a schoolmaster. The Scripture said in Galatians
that the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to faith in Christ.
It taught us that there's no hope in the law. No hope in what
Moses taught. No hope in self-righteousness.
No hope in merit or works. It taught us that the law was
our schoolmaster to bring us to faith in Christ and shut us
up to faith in Christ. And afflictions. God sends afflictions
and trials. And these afflictions and trials
are our schoolmaster. They're schoolmasters too, to
teach us, to trust our Lord Jesus Christ, whatever happens in this
world. And I tell you, He takes us sometimes
through things that we think we'll never get through, but
we always get through. His grace has always been sufficient. He's always upheld us. He's been
our comfort and our stay. And He's been our light in our
darkest hours. But I tell you, afflictions and
trials are our schoolmaster to teach us to trust Him and to
teach us to have no confidence in this flesh. None whatsoever
in this flesh. And it also teaches us how frail
we really are. Oh, how frail we are. Listen
God tells us you know that the Lord pitieth us as a father pitieth
his children for he knoweth our frame that we are but dust dust
But I want to look at this grace being our schoolmaster Teaching
us some things and look what it says in verse 11 for the grace
of God that bringeth salvation appeared it appeared the grace
of God appeared and And it's a revelation. When it talks about
appearing, the grace of God is a revelation. If you know anything
about grace, grace has to appear. It has to come to where you are.
You can't go where it's at. It's got to come to where you
are. And our Lord Jesus Christ Himself is a revelation. It's
a revelation. Light comes and shines in a dark
place. And I know this, that men can
understand philosophy. They can go and they can understand
philosophy and take philosophy classes. And men can understand
worldly wisdom. They can understand how to get
along in this world. There's a man we know, and we've
known him for years, and he says the only reason he goes to the
church he goes to is because of the social contacts and business
contacts that he makes there. Everybody that's in there, that's
where they go. So men know worldly wisdom. They understand worldly
wisdom. And I tell you, men can understand fatalism. They can
understand fatalism. That there's no wisdom of what
happens in this world. And no wisdom in the grace of
God working in this world. No creation behind anything that
happens in this world. And men can understand free willism. And they can understand works.
But man cannot understand the grace of God without a revelation
from God Himself. Now that's the way it is, and
I tell you, the grace of God has appeared. It appeared through
our Lord Jesus Christ, and it's a revelation. I mean, man, you
know sometimes, I know this has happened to you, you got frustrated.
You say, why in the world can't they see that? Why in the world
can't they understand that? Why in the world don't they get
it? Same reason you didn't until God taught you. Same reason you
didn't until God taught you. And I tell you, the grace of
God appeared, and you know it appeared in a glorious, glorious
way. It appeared in the incarnation
of our Lord Jesus Christ. The law was given by Moses, but
grace and truth came by our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, grace has
always been the way of salvation. Grace has always been the way
God has saved His people. But grace was seen in the Old
Testament. The first time you see grace
mentioned, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And what
happened when Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord? God
prepared a way to save him and his house. And that grace that
appeared to him. He was like everybody else. The
whole world lied in wickedness. The thoughts of man's mind was
only evil continually. And God says, Noah, I'm going
to give you grace. And Noah, you're going to preach
righteousness. And Noah, I'm going to tell you
how to prepare an ark for the salvation of your people. That
was the grace of God. And grace appeared in the Old
Testament. And grace appeared when Abraham
and Isaac started up that mountain. Said, I and the latter are going
up there to worship. And we'll return in three days.
Because he was told to take his son, his only beloved son, take
him up on that mountain and offer him for sacrifice. But he knew
that God would bring that boy back, back down that mountain
with him. But here's what happened. They
got up that mountain. And he had Isaac strapped down,
ready, ready to offer him as a sacrifice. And God stayed in
his hand and he looked behind him and there was a ram caught
in the thicket. Where'd that ram come from? How did it get
there just like that? And he took that ram and put
it in the stand of Isaac. That's the grace of God. And oh boy, it got dark in Egypt. Darker than it's ever been. It
got midnight in Egypt. And God said, you all kill the
Passover lamb. And those Passover, He said,
kill the Passover lamb. There was a quarter million lambs
slain that night, but God considered it just one lamb. And they ate
that lamb, and they had their clothes on, their feet off, shoes
on their feet, ready to go. And God said, I'm going to pass
through here at midnight, and I'm going to kill the firstborn
of everything in this place. But God said this, He says, but
when I see that blood, I'm going to pass over you. And that's
why God passes over us. He sees that blood. So the grace
of God appeared in the Old Testament. But these were shadows. They
were just pictures. The grace that Noah received.
What's it like compared to the grace that we received through
our Lord Jesus Christ that appeared? He was saved in an ark. We're
saved in Christ. Grace appeared to Noah. Grace
came to us through our Lord Jesus Christ. What blessed grace that
was showed to Abraham when he took that ram and he put it in
Isaac's stead and started back down off that mountain. But what
is that compared to the Lord Jesus Christ being our Lamb? that appeared to be our Lamb,
appeared to be our sacrifice, appeared to be the one to put
in our place and to put in our stead, to take our place there. What is that compared to what
grace that came to us in our Lord Jesus Christ? And what grace
it was that caused God to pass over Israel through the blood
of that Lamb. But what is that to being justified
freely by His grace through our Lord Jesus Christ. Shadows over
here. Reality over here. Shadows there. We've got the body. They had
a type. We've got the reality. And we've
got the body. We've got the reality. We've
got the taste, the grace of God in our Lord Jesus Christ. And
oh my! And I'll tell you something else
about grace. Grace, I'll tell you what, I
thought, man, I'm going to wear these folks out with grace this
morning. But I don't know how you can do that. I'll tell you
what, I've never been wore out with it. Have you? If that's all you wanted
to teach about, that would be fine with me. But grace taught
us this, that grace is our schoolmaster. Grace taught us how sinners are
saved. Grace taught us how God saves
the sinner. and how God saved us. Grace brings salvation. Dude, look what it says, for
the grace of God that brings salvation. It brought it. It brings it. It brings it. Everybody else is telling folks,
you know, go to church. Go to church. Go to church. Make
a change. I remember years ago, you know,
I had real long hair and a beard and And people would tell me, boy,
you need to cut your hair, and you need to shave your beard,
and you need to start going to church. What good would that have done
me? I'd just look different, but I'd still be in the same
person inside. And there's a fella came to me, a deacon of another
church down home. And he talked to me about, he
said, you act like you're the only people in the world that
knows anything about The gospel and how God, you know, would
know anything about anything. The way you preach, nobody's
saved but you folks." I said, well, I can't help that, you
know. I can't help what I preach, you know. And he was trying to
tell me, you know, and he came to my office and he brought his
Bible with him. And he went to this verse of
Scripture and he says, there it says that God, the grace of
God has appeared to all men. I said, well, if you think that's
what that means, I said, listen, me and you walk out of here right
now, I said, there's a house right here, right across from
the church, right? I said, let's go over and knock
on that door and ask if the grace of God's appeared to them. And
I said, we'll go to the next and we'll knock on the door and
see if the grace of God's appeared to them. He said, oh, no, no,
no, we don't want to do that. He said, we don't want to bother
anybody. I said, that's because you know that you're wrong about
that. The grace of God, it brings salvation. And I tell you what,
when grace comes and it appeared through our Lord Jesus Christ,
it's the one that brings salvation. It comes to where you are. It
comes and makes you understand everything that you need to be
saying. It comes to make you understand that if God does anything
for you at all, He's got to do it from start to finish. I mean,
He teaches you that. And I tell you one thing He does,
once He teaches you that, He just keeps on teaching it over.
Old Scott used to say, I keep repeating old Scott. Scott says,
if it's worth telling once, it's worth repeating. Repetition,
repetition, repetition. And I tell you, sin put out our
eyes to where we couldn't see. Man is utterly and absolutely
unable to contribute to His salvation. We were dead in trespasses and
sin. Wasn't that what it says there
in verse 1 and 2 of chapter 3 here of Titus? Oh, we was brawlers. We were disobedient, foolish,
and living in malice, and envy, hateful, and hating one another.
But after that, the kindness and love of God, our Savior,
toward us appeared, toward man appeared. And you know, I'll
tell you this about the grace of God. You keep this and look
with me over in Acts chapter 18. And this grace that's our
schoolmaster. Paul the Apostle said it this
way. He says, by the grace of God,
I am what I am. By the grace of God. Everybody
says, I am what I am by the grace of God. But Paul started out
with grace. He said, by the grace of God,
I am what I am. We don't start out with I, we
start out with Him. That's the difference between
grace and the difference between works. Grace says, He did it. Grace came to me. I didn't come
to grace. And that's what people used to
say all the time. When did you come to grace? And I said, no,
I didn't come to grace. Grace came to me. Grace came
to where I was. And grace has still got to come
to where I am. Would you all agree with that? Got to have
it. Just got to have it. But look,
you know, and here in Acts 18.27, it's talking about Apollos, I believe. And when
he was disposed to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting
the disciples to receive him who, when he was come, now listen
to this, helped them much which had believed. How did they believe? Through grace. They had a great
big church meeting one day, in Acts 15. A bunch of Pharisees
came in there and told them fellas, says, you know, you can't be
saved. Said, you accept Jesus. Yes, oh yes, accept Jesus. But,
here's what you've got to do. You've also got to be circumcised.
You've also got to keep the law of Moses. Oh, they weren't going
to hear that. And you know what Peter stood
up and said, Acts 15, 11? He said, we believe, us Jews,
me, Simon Peter the Apostle, and James and the rest, we believe
that we shall be saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
even as they The Gentiles were saved. If we're going to be saved,
we're going to be saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And oh, beloved, and I tell you,
this grace taught us how sinners are saved. And I tell you, this
grace that came through our Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord's life,
what a life our Lord lived. What a life! Everywhere He went,
I've often wondered what it would have been like to actually bend
and heard our Lord Jesus Christ speak. To heard Him sit down
and teach. How would you like to have been
there when they brought that woman taking in adultery? And our Lord
looked at him and he bent down and he stooped down and he wrote
something in the ground and he got back up and said, you without
sin let him cast the first stone. He got down and he wrote something
else and he got back up and there was only nobody left but him
and that woman. Him and that woman. And wouldn't
you have loved to have been there that time? Oh my, to sit there
and listen to our Lord Jesus Christ. But I tell you what,
I have seen His life. I've seen His life. You know
how I've seen it? By the grace of God. God taught me about the
Lord Jesus Christ and His life. He taught me about His holy life,
His sinless life, His righteous life, His obedient life. that
He always pleased the Father. I mean, God taught me, I mean,
I've been taught, I've seen the life of my Lord Jesus Christ.
I've seen His life living for me. Every step He took, He took
a step that I couldn't take. And life He lived, He lived a
life that I couldn't live. And oh, listen, I've seen His
death. Grace taught me His death, that in His death, that death
wasn't for Himself. He had no sin of His own. But
bless His name, when He took our sin upon Himself, He came
to be a sin offering. He came to be a sacrifice. He said, My hour has now come. And we hung on that cross. He
had sin on Him. And sin, wherever it's found,
it must be punished. It must die. And God, in sovereign
grace and justice, come down on His blessed Son and punished
Him. Oh, how He punished Him. His
wrath fell on Him. And He consumed that wrath. And oh, God's justice punished
him, stuck it into his heart and he died. But the last words he said on
that cross, it is finished. Done. It was done. Oh, what was done? Everything that needed to be. Where's your sin at? I ain't
got any. Where'd it go? Christ my Savior put it away
by the sacrifice of Himself. And right now, right now, He
appears in the presence of God for us. Huh? Oh, I tell you, how did
I, how did I, we know... This grace, this grace that appeared,
this grace that's our schoolmaster, it taught us about the life and
death of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I tell you what, and this
is the best of all, it raised Him from the dead. And you know
what that means for us? We're looking for that blessed
hope and glorious appearing of that great God and our Savior,
Jesus Christ. Oh, what a day that's going to
be! What a day! Because He was raised, because He was raised, this mortal
must put on immortality. This corruption must put on incorruption. And then it will be brought to
pass that saying, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where
is thy victory? Where is it at? Oh, bless His
name. It's not the only world I'm going
to live in. It's not the only thing of this flesh that I live
in. It's not the only body I'm going to have. One of these days, this
old flesh will fall away. This old body will disappear. And God Himself will come with
a shout, with the voice of an archangel. And the dead in Christ
shall arise. And we'll meet the Lord in the
air. And this Scripture says that we shall forever be with
the Lord. That's what I want to go do.
I want to go see Him. I want to go see Him. You say,
well, are we going to get to have a great reunion up there?
We'll know everybody there. We will know every person we've
ever known. But I tell you what, every single
one of us will not be walking around there looking for somebody
we know. We're going to be interested in seeing one person, our Lord
Jesus Christ. Our wives won't be our wives.
Our fathers won't be our fathers. Our sisters won't be our sisters.
Our brothers won't be our brothers in the flesh. We'll all be made
new in Christ. And the only thing we'll be interested
in is seeing Him. And when we all get there, When
we all get there, and everybody's there, all the dead in Christ,
and all those in God knows where every piece of dust is of those
whom He died. When we all get there, He's going
to make us, He's going to have a table so big, so big. How can He have a table? Well,
He's the Lord. If He created a world like this, we're just
speaking. Can you imagine what kind of table he's going to have
and he's going to make us all sit down? And he's going to serve us a
meal. We're going to the mattress up for the lamb. Oh, that just
makes you want to holler, doesn't it? Oh, and I'll tell you what I'm
saying is this, that grace teaches us, the grace that has appeared,
that grace that's our schoolmaster teaches us that all of our salvation
is entirely outside ourselves. My salvation is entirely objective. My salvation was complete when
our Lord Jesus Christ died, was buried, and resurrected. And
I didn't know anything about it until somebody preached the
gospel to me and the grace of God appeared to me. And oh, what grace does is teaches
us that Christ did it all. Look down here in verse 14 of
Titus. Grace teaches us that Christ
did it all. Look what it says here. Who gave
Himself for us. Huh? Who was it that gave Himself
for us? It says, the great God and our
Savior, Jesus Christ. That's who gave Himself, the
great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Well, what did He do?
He redeemed us. He redeemed us. He bought us.
Paid our sin debt. He rescued us, relieved us, and
paid all our debt. And look what it says here. And
it also talks about us. Who gave Himself for us. To redeem
us. I'm an us. I'm an us or a them. You know,
you find God, He said He gave Himself for them. He gave Himself
for us. I'm a them-us, and us them. You know, God always describes
His people that way. But all says, and He says here
that we are peculiar people, particular people, that He did. When it says all men here, the
grace of God that hath appeared to all men, you know what that
means? That means old men, young men. Older women, younger women. That means people that are servants,
masters, all kinds of classes, all kinds of characters, that
it only teaches. You see, He's the one that gave
Himself for us. And I'll tell you what, I've
often tried to understand and thought about a lot where it
says, He gave Himself. What is Himself? What is Himself? He gave Himself. There's nobody, and I believe
this. Now, you know, if I'm wrong about
this, you all forgive me. I don't care how much we love
somebody in this world, how long we've been married to them, and
how much we love. We cannot give them completely
all of ourselves. There's something that we always
hold back. We just don't have that ability.
We cannot give all our personality, all our emotions, all our affections,
all of our will. We cannot give ourselves completely
and entirely to a person. There's something that we hold
in reserve. We always hold in reserve. But that's one thing that our
Lord Jesus Christ did. He gave Himself. All that He is, all that made
Him, All that made Him holy, harmless,
undefiled, separate from sinners, higher than the heavens. Him. Himself. It says in Philippians
2, He emptied Himself. Emptied Himself. And oh my, grace teaches us that
Christ did it all. Oh, what a schoolmaster. What
a schoolmaster. And look what else it is. It
teaches us that grace is effectual. It says there that it brought
salvation and it redeemed us. What Christ came to do, He did.
It says the grace of God that bringeth
salvation. You know, grace is actually effectual. It actually redeemed us. It's
not something that God tries to do. That's just what an awful
thing. You know, when it says there,
teaching us to deny all ungodliness. Now, you know what ungodliness
in my mind is when I think of that? Denying God. It's an ungodly thing to deny
God. It's an ungodly thing. You know,
whenever you bring anything about a human being in this equation
of salvation, that's ungodliness. That's ungodliness. It's being
without God. And we deny anything that does
not give God all the glory. We deny that. We resist that.
We're not going to have anything to do with that. We refuse to
have anything to do with anything and support anything. You know,
there's all kinds of things at home that we could support, but
the thing is, is if they do that so that they can get all the
glory for it. I'm not going to support anything just because
it's got Jesus' name attached to it. I'm not going to support
anything that denies the grace of God and denies God in getting
all the glory. I'm not going to support that.
I'm not going to support anything that attributes anything that
anybody does to anything they do. That's why it says, deny
all ungodliness. I deny that I had anything to
do with this. I deny that... and if a man comes
along and starts telling me about you... Our folks, and this happened,
you know, and you've had this happen to you. You've talked
to people where you work, and people come around you, and you
see people, and they all go to church somewhere. Almost everybody
you work with goes to church somewhere. And so when you're
talking to them, all they talk about is how much they attend
church, and all the prayers they pray, and all of that. And they
talk about what they're doing. And you deny that. You say, I
don't believe that. I don't agree with that. That's
not the way it is. It don't mean going out here
and living like hell. I don't think that's what that
means. I'm sure it has some kind of application to that. We put
an article in the newspaper half a year and years. I got this gym that I go to and
been working out there for years and years and I was there one
time and there's an older fellow there and his wife and we got
to talking and he told me the church he went to and the Baptist
church he went to and told all the meetings they had and all
the souls that they had won, how many they got converted at
last weekend and all that. And I stand there and he says,
he said, what do you do? And I said, I pastor a church.
He said, oh, you do? You're a Christian too? And I
said, yeah, yeah, yeah. He said, where you pastor at?
I said, over here at Lantana Grace Church, right over here
on Lantana Road. He hollered at his wife, she was all the
way in the back of the building. She said, honey, honey, this is that man, this
is that fella right here. This is the one putting
all that stuff in the paper. That's what he done. They knew
the difference just like that, that quick. They just quit talking. Just quit talking. They know
the difference. They know that that fellow, what
he's saying is not what I'm saying. He believes something different
than I believe. And you know what does that? Grace is our
schoolmaster. And you know who made us to differ?
Grace. Grace taught us that the only
difference between us and them is God's blessed grace. He made
us to differ. If God hadn't made me to differ,
I'd still be a tongue-speaking, jump-benching Pentecostal. That's
what I'd be. Or I'd be a Catholic, a free-will
Baptist, or I'd be in the world. But the last place I'd be, had
not grace been my schoolmaster, I would not be right here, had
not grace been my schoolmaster. Ain't that right? And oh, let
us never ever forget that. So grace is effectual. And look
what it says there. It says that He came to purify
unto Himself, in verse 14, a peculiar people. You know what that word
peculiar means? A possession. We're God's possession. Christ gave Himself for us and
He possesses us. We belong to Him, lock, stock
and barrel. I love the fact that I'm Christ. I love the fact that He has the
power and He makes me willing. I love the truth that He Himself
gave Himself and I love the truth that all I have to look to in
this world is Him and Him alone. And oh, such peace, such comfort,
such assurance, You know, every one of you fellas has got a recliner
at home. Every one of you does, don't
you? All you men has a recliner at home. And when you go home
this afternoon, you'll go home and eat and you'll lay down in
your recliner and you'll watch football or you'll go to sleep.
And you'll rest. You'll relax in that thing. Well,
that's when you repose there. But what we do as believers,
we repose our soul in the Lord Jesus Christ. If I was standing
on the highest mountain, and my salvation depended on Christ
and Christ alone, I could fall back just like that and know
that He'd catch me. That there He is, He's for me. I mean, He'd catch me. He has
caught me. He's caught me. I'm His and He
is mine. Beloved, I'm going to let that go at that. I tell you
what, I was going to say a few more things about some other
things here, but, man, we don't want to, you know, I was telling them last night,
I said, A, he'll teach you, you know, just because you've got
an old paper, you don't have to say it. And again, like Scott used
to say, he said, I've seen several places where he could have quit. But I tell you what, We understand
that God's grace has taught us. Grace is our schoolmaster. The
grace of God that bringeth, bringeth, bringeth salvation, effectual
salvation, appeared. It taught us something. It taught
us. It taught us that Christ did
it all. He gave himself for us. And we
are particular people, a peculiar people. And it taught us ever,
you know, the grace of God is our schoolmaster. And I tell
you what, and that's what we're doing. There ain't no graduates,
there ain't no graduates in this school of grace, are there? There
ain't no masters of divinity, no doctors of divinity. I quit,
but I tell you one other thing for a start. There was a fellow
called one time years ago, and he said, is this Dr. Bell? And
I thought it was one of my preacher buddies. And I said, yes it is. And then the next boy said, was
you the one who took out my gallbladder? And I said, no. So that was Dr. Bell. And I met
him later, and I told him that story. But I said, no, no. No, that wasn't me. I said, I'm
just acting a fool. Just acting a fool. Thank you
all for being so attentive, being so gracious. It's been absolutely
a delight to be here with you. Oh, I appreciate it so much,
so much. Let me turn this off too. All
right.