I'm here now in Titus chapter
3. I brought a message from this last week on Sunday evening,
and I thought I'd hitch my wagon to it again, see what happens.
And starting at verse 3, this week
down through verse 7. For we ourselves also were sometimes
foolish, disobedient, deceived, served in divers lusts and pleasures,
living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But after
that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared,
not by works of righteousness which we have 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, that, being justified by His
grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal
life." Now, my title tonight is A Full and a Free Salvation. If you ever stand at the ocean,
And a lot of you have. A lot of you have been right
to the ocean, swam in it, both coast, east or west. And one
thing about it, when you see it, you know it's full. You cannot
tell how full the ocean is. You can take water after water
after water out of it, and it's just like, it's still full, ain't
it? Still full. And the earth is
full of wealth. Do you know how much food comes
out of the earth? How much water comes out of the
earth? How much gold? How much silver? How much diamonds? How much timber? Just on and on and on and on
you could go. How much food and animals, meat,
all this wealth comes out of the earth. And yet the earth
is still full. We cannot tell the amount of
wealth that's in this earth. And then when there's fullness
in the light of the sun, you can't stare directly at the sun.
It blinds you. You get the spots in your eyes
and you can't see. And you can't never reckon how
full they are. And this is the way salvation
by God's grace is. Can you tell how full it is? We've been saying it for years
and years and years, and lots of preachers have, but the half
hasn't yet been told. There's a fullness in this salvation
by God's grace. But our Lord Jesus Christ Himself
said, or Paul did in Ephesians, that in the ages to come, that's
what it's going to take, ages, ages upon ages, to show us the
kindness and love of God towards us, and the riches of His grace
towards us, in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we still, when we
get into eternity, we'll still not understand the fullness of
what God did for us because of how desperately lost we really
were, and who it was that came into this world to save us, that
the difference between man and God is as infinite as you can
imagine the distance between us and God. But God spanned that
gulf. God spanned that distance. God came down here and so identified
with us that the Father treated Him as us when He was on that
cross. Astounding. Astounding. But there's a starting place
to this salvation by grace. There's a starting place. And
I want to give you four, five, six things tonight here. And
one of the things about this full and free salvation, that
there has to be a starting place. Now, we know it starts with God,
but now as far as our part is concerned, it's an honest confession
that we must make before God Himself. It's an honest confession.
Look what it says here in verse three. For we ourselves, We're
also sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving all these different
kinds of lusts and pleasures, living in malice, envy, hateful
and hating one another. We were slaves to sin, disobedient,
deceived, and willingly deceived. Deceived in our religion, deceived
in ourselves, Deceived about what God was and what it was
like. Deceived about sin. Hateful and hating one another.
You say, I never hated anybody. Are you sure you didn't one time
in your life you didn't hate black people? You reckon black
people every time they didn't hate you? You reckon there was
a time that you didn't hate the legalists, hated the people that
didn't live like them, the fundamentalists hate the Pentecostals, the Pentecostal
hated those that didn't have no spirit? So there was all this
hate. Race hates race. Class hates
class. So we have all of these things.
They said our Lord Jesus Christ Himself said they hated me without
a cause. They could find no reason, no
cause to hate me, no matter what I said or what I did. If I preached
with joy, they wouldn't dance. They mourned. When I preached
with mourning and how they ought to lament, then they danced and
they should not please them. So they hated me without a cause.
But now let me tell you something. We got to confess why Paul said
we ourselves were like this. Paul said he was injurious. He
was a blasphemer. He was persecutor. He hated and
despised the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Scriptures tells us in
Romans chapter 8 that we have enmity in our heart toward God. That there's a time, and if God
hadn't have changed us, we actually hated God. We hated the God of
the Bible. Now you say, I don't know about
that. I know I did. I did. There was a time I did. I didn't like the way he run
the world. I didn't like the way I was treated
in the world. I didn't like the parents that
I was given. I didn't like anybody telling me what I could or couldn't
do. And then when I made a perfection, I didn't like the fact that I
couldn't live as holy. And people says my wholeness
wasn't of myself. So you can go right down the
line. And the carnal mind is enmity against God. And there
was a time that there was not a person in this building that
didn't hate God, hateful and hating one another. And this
business of, you know, you didn't hate the God you knew. I didn't
hate the one I knew. You know, there was a time that
I thought Jesus Christ was nothing but a revolutionary. It was revolutionary, and if
I joined up with him, we could change the world and be a revolutionary
too. That's all I thought about it.
Until one day, I was so deceived in myself and so disobedient
that I actually thought that I could please God with the works
of my hands. And you all remember that very well when I first come
to Tennessee. Y'all thought I could please God with the works of
my own hands. I thought I could pray and get God on my side. I thought that if I could get
people to change the way they dressed, the way they lived,
and how much they attended church, and how much money they gave,
that they could be as good as I was and be acceptable to God.
And that's what we ourselves were. Now here's the situation.
Am I saying anything? Are we saying anything that's
not true about ourselves out of this verse? Is there anything
in that that's not true? So it's an honest confession.
Huh? Are we confessing something that's
not true about us? And I'll tell you something,
once you know this about yourself, and God makes you understand
something about yourself, when you find out that you have no
righteousness, that there's none good and no not one, that your
righteousness is a filthy rag, and that you have nothing to
bring, once you confess that, you'll confess this from now
on, and this is what you'll say, in my flesh dwells no good thing. That that I would do, I don't. That that I hate, I do. So then
I see this war, I see this fight going on in my members, between
my mind and my heart, between my flesh and my spirit. I see
this war going on. And oh, I say, oh, wretched man
that I am. And I tell you, that's why John
says this, if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins. And me and one of the sisters
was talking this morning, me and Sister Jeanette was talking
this morning. The sin, my awfulest, the awfulest
sin that I committed was my religious sins. My religious sins. You say, you know, boy, you start
thinking about what you said about God. You start thinking
about what you preached about God. You start thinking about
how you approach God. You start thinking about the
lies you've told on Him. The way you believed about Him.
And oh my, it's a shameful thing. It's an embarrassing thing. And
we have to confess. I have to confess it. Now, you
confess what you want to, but I'm going to confess that everything
Paul said in that first scripture, I confess it. There's not anything
in there that Paul's lying about on me. As you reckon this Bible's
lying on us? Telling us something about us
that's not true? And then, oh, bless His holy name. And look
at it. Now, we confess. That's an honest confession.
And then, look what else it says. But, oh, we get a revelation. I love these... Mr. Officer Douglas P. says, a very
big door, swinging on a little bit of hinges. He says, but,
after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man
appeared." We had a revelation. And it appeared. It appeared. It's just what's called a revelation.
It appears. When did it appear? When Christ
came into this world. When the Lord Jesus came into
this world. And who did it appear to? To
us sinners. There's four places in this little
old book that is called God our Savior. In verse 3 of chapter
1, it says, God our Savior. And verse 10 of chapter 2, God
our Savior. Verse 13 of chapter 2, God our
Savior, Jesus Christ. And verse 4 of chapter 2, God
our Savior. And all of a sudden, He has to
appear. We don't know where he's at. He dwells in a life that
no man can approach unto. So if we know him, he has to
appear. The kindness of God has to appear to us. The love of
God has to appear to us. We don't know where he's at.
How would we get to God if we didn't know? James was telling
me this morning when he went to a funeral, yesterday I believe
it was, and he said the preacher kept saying, Make room for God
in your heart. Make room for God in your heart.
Make room for God in your heart. How do you make room for God
in your heart? The heaven of heavens can't contain Him. And
where would you go without making room? How do you open your heart? How do you know where you're
at? How do you know what condition you're in? Oh, God has to appear
to us. Look what David said. Keep this
and look what David said in Psalm 51. Psalm 51? Oh my, the kindness,
compassion, with the earnestness to do something for us that hath
appeared. It's like, you know, when the
grace that bringeth salvation hath appeared. It's a revelation. It comes. It manifests itself. We sit there and we're lost.
comfortable in our lost condition until God appears, and there
we was in this rebellion, in this disobedience and deceit,
and God comes in that condition we're in, and He appears to us,
and He comes in kindness. He comes in compassion. He comes
in love. And He manifests that love in
such power that He overwhelms us. His love is what defeats
us and conquers us and brings us to our knees. Look what He
said here in Psalm 51 and 1. Have mercy upon me, O God. Now
listen to it. According to Thy lovingkindness. Lord, how much love and kindness
you got? How much is in you? How much
is in your heart? How much is in your will? How
much is in your purpose? How much is in Christ? Ever how
much you got, would you let me have it? Would you manifest it
to me? According to the multitude of
thy tender mercies brought out by transgressions? Oh my, and
here's where we go again. He said, wash me throughly, throughly. We need something besides an
outward washing. We need something besides just
something done for us. We need something done for us
all the way through. Wash me throughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. And here
goes that confession again. For I acknowledge my transgression,
my sin, as ever before me. You see, beloved, there's a fountain
open. There's a fountain open. And
you know where that fountain's open at? It's opened in the love
of God. And you know, I wish I could
say something about God's love. I wish I knew something about
it. We talk about it so much, and
we Due scriptures, God commended his love toward us in that while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And we sense the law
often is so much about God's love for us, for his elect, and
it appears to us that sometimes we lose the force of it, we lose
the power of it, the effectiveness of it. But then when I heard
Jesus Christ himself, it says this, and this was manifested,
the love of God toward us. God manifested His love for us.
How did He do it? Because that God sent His only
begotten Son into the world, into this world. He was in the
world, and the world was made by Him, but the world knew Him
not. But He sent Him to this world.
And why would He do this? That we might live, live through
Him. Herein is love, not that we loved
God. We didn't love God. We loved
ourselves. And I'll tell you something,
this idea of unconditional love, that is absolutely, there's nothing
to that in this world. An unconditional love is not
so. People don't even love their
own children unconditionally. If you loved them unconditionally,
you know what you'd do? You wouldn't let them. Well,
you just don't. You don't. You discipline. Why?
Because you put conditions on how far they can go and where
they can't go. And the only love that don't have any conditions
on it is the love of God given to us in Christ. If He put conditions
on it, would we have it? If He put conditions on it, would
it continue? If He put conditions on it, do
you reckon He ever gave it to us? But, oh, look what he said. Here it is, Lord. Not that we
love God. Oh, but here it is that he loved
us. What do you do about it? Send your son to be the mercy
seat, to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Lord bless his
holy name. That's that fountain open for
sin and uncleanliness. And I tell you, it's a revelation
that comes from above, the kindness and love of God our Savior toward
men up here. Let me show you another way here.
I want to talk about this full salvation. If you look at the
complete justification, look what it says in verse 7. Titus
chapter 3. That being justified by His grace. I read things like that and it
fills me with so much joy, I can't understand myself. It does. It makes me feel, how do you
know? If you're just to read a verse like that, that being
justified by His grace. Now justification is something
that takes place in heaven itself. Justification means that God
Himself, in the courts of heaven, acquits you has nothing of choice
against you, that God himself in glory in the courts of heaven,
sitting on the bar of justice, our Lord Jesus Christ, when he
presents himself there on our behalf, God says, I clear them
of all guilt, I clear them of all sin, I acquit them of every
crime that they've ever done. That's done outside of ourselves.
And, oh, beloved, and that's why I said, be justified by his
grace. And I tell you, it's against
God that we sin, and only God that can justify us. That's why
Paul said, who shall they defend in the charge of God's elect?
It's God that justifies us. Come on, sin, go up there in
the presence of God. Tell them how sinful you are.
God said, I don't see nothing. Tell him about what a rebel he's
been. I don't see no rebellion. I see nothing but obedience. He was disobedient, but now he's
obedient. Come on, devil, go up there and
tell the Lord what I've done today. Tell Him how awful I've
been today. How slothful I've been today. Go up there and tell
Him. The Father says, I don't see nothing in him wrong with
him at all. He's been dedicated today. He's been devoted today.
He's been committed today. And you go up there and tell
him how he's going to live with all of his heart. Oh, listen,
he loves me with all of his heart. Go up there and tell him how
much he's exaggerated and all the lies he's told and all the
things that he said that he shouldn't have said. Oh, I didn't hear
him say a word. Everything that's come out of his mouth has been
right, just and true. How can that be? God spared not his own son. but
delivered him up for us all. How shall he not with him also
freely give us all things to enjoy? So then what shall we
say then to these things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies them. If God justifies you, who in
the world is going to condemn you? Oh, let me show you something
over here in Galatians 2.16, just a minute. Oh, justification. My, my, what
a word. What a word. And people, you
know, people use what we say, what we do, and how we act, and
the world does, and religion does. They use it against us.
They use it against us. And all we can tell them is,
well, what in the world makes you think that you're justified?
How do you convince yourself? How do you know you're justified?
How do you know you have no sin? How do you know that you have
the righteousness of God? How do you know that God justifies
you and can accept you? There's only one thing I can
say. There's a man sitting at God's right hand. And there's my justification.
There he sits at God's right hand. Well, how'd he get there? By
bearing my offenses. By bearing my sin. By bearing
your sin. By bearing your judgment. By
bearing your wrath. And there's my justification
sitting there at God's right hand. Now, if you want to take
up anything against me, take it up with Him. Huh? That'll work, won't it? Look what He said here in Galatians
2.16. Now, these are things we know.
Knowing, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of
the law. Noah, that is not. But how is
he justified then? But by the faith of Jesus Christ.
Now, when it says, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we
have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by
the faith of Christ. Now, what that means is this,
beloved? the faithfulness of Christ. We
believe on Him and we're justified by the faithfulness of Christ.
Faith didn't justify us, Christ justifies us. Faith believes
what Christ has done, accepts what God has done in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so we're justified by the
faithfulness of Christ and not by the works of the law. For
by the works of the law and the flesh, nobody will ever be justified. So you see, beloved, justification
in the sight of God is what Christ did, and God accepts us on the
basis of what Christ did. In Romans 3.28, I meant to use
that this morning and forgot about it. Look in Romans 3.28. Look what it rescued me, verse
26. Let's look at that just a minute.
Talking about justification, righteousness. Paul's talking about Christ being
set forth to be our mercy seat, to be our atoning sacrifice.
And he says to declare, I say at this time, the righteousness
of God, the righteousness of Christ, that's what I'm declaring,
that God might be just and the justifier of him which believes
in Jesus. Well, where's boasting then?
What in the world can we boast about? What about our works?
What about our obedience? What about our tithing? What
about our church attendance? I tell you what, where's boasting
then? It's excluded. Well, what's the principle on
which it's excluded? Of works? No, no, no. But by
the law of faith. By the principle of faith. Therefore,
we conclude that a man is justified by faith, without the deeds of
the law. You see, we quit doing and start believing. Oh, bless His name. That's why,
for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
It's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Is your mouth swabbed as far
as boasting before God? To God be the glory, great things
he hath done. And then let me show you something
else he did. Back over in Types. Not only was, we just saw his
contention. We just tell what's to have been
told about how bad we are. Then this revelation, the kindness
and love of God our Savior toward man appeared. This complete justification,
justified by grace. And then look here, Regeneration
in verse 5. This kindness and love of God
appeared to us not by works of righteousness, which we have
done, but according to His mercy He saved us." Now watch this,
"...by the washing of regeneration." He saved us by the washing of
regeneration. Now let me ask you a question.
If a man was justified from all sin without being given a new
heart, without being given a new nature, what do you reckon he'd
be like? Be like a dog returning to his
vomit, a sow returning to his mind. So regeneration, what that
is, is God making a new creature. He brings into existence a person
who was never in existence before. He brings in a new birth. He
brings in a new person. We're made partakers of the divine
nature. We're born from above. That's
why Paul said, put on that new man which created in righteousness
and true holiness. And so you see, beloved, a man,
if he's justified without regeneration, without being born again, without
the new birth, he would not be no better off. That's a negative,
but that's why we have to have this new birth. That's why we
have to have this new heart. If any man be in Christ, he is
a new creation. He's not trying to be. God does
this, and you know as well as I do. Whenever God saves you
by His blessed grace, and you've been learning the gospel all
these years, been learning about Christ, been learning the truth
as it is in Christ, and the gospel just keeps coming and touching
us and moving us and teaching us and comforting us and instructing
us and reproving us, you know as well as I do that that person
that's in you that answers to this scripture, that answers
to the gospel, that's moved by the Word, that person never existed
until God put him in there. That's why some people can sit
and listen and never hear anything. But when God gives you that new
heart, when God gives you that new creation, when God gives
you that new birth and brings you into that spiritual person
and makes you a partaker of the divine nature, how in the world
can, how can we call on God unless we have the nature of God? Why
can we desire God if we didn't have the nature of God? Why could
we understand the Scriptures if we didn't have the Holy Spirit,
so that we could read them and understand them? So He gives
us a new mind, He gives us a new heart, He gives us new will,
new affections. And beloved, that's why when
you hear the Gospel, that's why when you hear the Scriptures,
your heart burns within you, because you're anxious to what
the Spirit of Christ in the Scriptures does say to you. And I don't
understand, I just do not understand how anybody could, well, I do
understand it, in this sense, that people can be surprised.
Paul said we were deceived. A man can be so deceived, and that he can be so pharisaical,
that he thinks he's alright. It's like our Lord Jesus, when
he talked to that rich young brood who came running to him,
and says, good master, And the first thing our Lord told us
is, Why callest thou me good? There's none good but one. That's
God. He says, What must I do to inherit eternal life? He said,
I'll tell you what you do. Keep the commandments. He said,
Well, I've done that. That's no problem. I've done
that all my life. I've kept the commandments. And
when they talked about keeping the commandments, they weren't
talking about keeping the ten. The Jews have over 600 rules, laws,
and washings, and feasts that they must keep in the Old Testament.
So when they talk about keeping the commandments, they're not
talking about just keeping the commandments, just the ten. And our Lord said,
well, that's good. I'll tell you what else you do
then. If you think that you've done that, sell everything you've
got. Sell everything you've got. Give every dime you've got away. to the poor, and you come follow
me." He walked away. Oh, I can't do that. I just can't
do it. I can't part with it. You reckon the Lord was playing
games with him? Now, I'll tell you something.
Now, that's how deceived he was that he honestly thought that
he was keeping the commandments. You think a fellow can't be deceived?
If a person wasn't deceived, if God saves them, they won't
be deceived anymore. That's what I'm saying. When
God gives a man a new heart, he understands how bad his heart
was before God gave him a new one. A man that's got faith understands
what it was to one time be without faith. A man that sees Christ
understands the time that he didn't see Christ. A man that
comes to know Christ understands there's a time he remembers when
he didn't know Christ. All right, let's look back over
here in our text real quick. Not only is it a new birth, a
regeneration, but it's a continual salvation. Look what he says
here in verse 5 again. Saved us by the washing of regeneration
and renewing of the Holy Ghost. which is shed on us abundantly
through Jesus Christ our Savior. You know, this renewing of the
Holy Ghost which is shed on us abundantly. What in the world
does this mean? Well, do you ever come to the
service and you're just lifeless and listless? And does that happen
to you in your everyday life? Well, this is what it tells us
then. It says that the Holy Ghost comes and renews us. stirs us
up. And that's why we say, Lord,
stir up my heart. Renew the spirit within me. Stir
up my mind. You see, life keeps us under
burden. Life keeps us under burden. Life,
death, children, grandchildren, sickness, husbands, all the things
that go on in our lives, all this sickness and worry and pain,
children, finances, jobs, and that's why we continually, because
we need to be renewed, that's why we continually need the Word.
We've got to have the Word of God. That's what the Holy Ghost
used to renew us. We not only need the Word, we
need the Word preached to us. How many times have you come
in here and just likely... I come in here often times and
get up here dead as if it was a fired shotgun. And God in mercies,
in some way enables me to be able to speak. And then when
I'm done, I'm in speaking. I don't understand it, but that's
the way it is. But you see, it's why we need the word priest.
It renews us. You come in here and you get
renewed, you get refreshed, and you're ready to go out again.
That's why we pray so earnestly sometimes. You know we don't
get something on your mind and you'll get something on your
heart and you'll just start praying so earnestly. Oh Lord, intervene
in that. Oh Lord, save. Oh God, save him
from this hell. Keep him from this. Keep me from
that. Please do this for that person.
Please do. And I mean you earnestly. Pray real quickly and very earnestly.
That's the Holy Spirit renewing us. Our souls get weak. Our souls get stale, and what
the Holy Spirit does, He renews us, He quickens us. That's what
our Lord says. It's the Spirit that quickens.
The flesh profits nothing. And then last of all, oh, this
full salvation. Let me show you what else in
verse 7, the last part, that being justified by His grace,
we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Salvation is an eternal possession. Huh? Made heirs according to
the ages of eternal life. That's what that said. Huh? Now,
beloved only children are heirs. I said this last week. Those
born of God will not just exist through the ages, but will have
an abundance through the ages. This is the way I like to see
it. Now, you know, Mary used to make these. She hasn't made
them in a long time. Homemade deep-dish butterscotch
pies. Homemade deep-dish butterscotch
pies. Boy, they're good. Mmm, mmm,
mmm. And, but she cuts that thing where
everybody can get a piece. But in salvation, and in being
made heirs, everybody gets the whole pie. You know, everybody gets the
whole pot. It don't get split up. God's
got a multitude that no man can number, but every one of us gets
the whole thing. Just like we're the only ones
who gets it. And I'll tell you something else,
we become ours through a will. And our Lord Jesus Christ, in
His will, He left us an inheritance. He left us life for one thing,
eternal life. That's more than just an existence.
Life is the quality of it. And what kind of life will we
live without our Lord Jesus Christ throughout eternity? And God
willed in Christ to give us all things. Oh my, what an inheritance. Can you imagine what it's going
to be like when we get there? When the Lord lets us go and
we get there, And we find out that Christ is who we have. That's
our inheritance. And then He's going to make a
new heaven and a new earth where He'll dwell in righteousness.
And we get all that by ourselves. And we get to go in and out with
our Lord. We get to sit down to eat with
Him. And we'll walk with Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, and to converse with Him. That's why our minds
can't comprehend it. And the greatest thing is, is
that we will have Christ for ourselves as if it's just us.
It's like when John, the scripture says all the time, that disciple
who Jesus loved. When eternity gets here, we get
our inheritance, that's what it's going to say about everyone.
That disciple who Jesus loved. He is so glorious and so mighty
and so full. that He can have every one of
us to Himself and never leave none of us out. Do you think
He can do that? He does it right now. As far
as He's concerned, you're the only one. If He can do that here,
just imagine what He can do when we get there. We have fullness of mercy to
begin with, fullness of grace that we're going to continue
in, and last, fullness of life in glory throughout all eternity. He that hath a son hath life.
I have a son. You have a son. I believe a son.