For our scripture reading this
morning, turn with me to the book of Titus. I want to read a little bit from
Titus chapter 2 and a little bit from Titus chapter
3. Let's begin in verse 11 of Titus
chapter 2. For the grace of God that bringeth
salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying
ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously,
and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed and
the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus
Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from
all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous
of good works. These things speak and exhort
and rebuke with all authority, let no man despise thee. 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. For we ourselves also were sometimes
foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving doubters' 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'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. And being justified by his grace,
we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying, and
these things I will, that they are affirmed constantly, that
they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain
good works. These things are good and profitable
unto men. If you will, turn back with me
to the book of Titus. We're going to be looking at
Titus chapter 3 and verse 5. And my subject this morning is
the washing of regeneration. We're quick to use spiritual
terms and so ignorant of what it is we speak. Titus was a Greek by birth. He was a convert of Paul's who
assisted him, was a dear brother to him in the Lord, and he calls
him my own son because he was saved under his ministry. You
can see that in chapter 1, verse 4. And there also he states the
reason for this letter. He said, For this cause left
I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that
are wanting, and ordain elders or pastors in every city as I
had appointed thee. I left you there for this reason,
and this is the reason for this epistle. is an island in the middle of
the Mediterranean Sea. And I don't know if you've ever
looked or even enjoyed looking at maps, but I like to go and
see where things are. And if you look at the Mediterranean
Sea, it flows in and it's more long than it is wide, and you
look way over on your left is Italy, and then you come across
to Turkey and directly south of Turkey is Crete. It's
right in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. You couldn't ask for anything
to be more centrally located than the island of Crete. The
island is about 270 miles long, running east to west. And from
the information I got reading about it, it's nowhere more than
50 miles wide. It looks kind of like a sideways
Florida, but it ain't that wide. At some point in his travels,
Paul had preached across this island. And no doubt, because
of where this island is, it was so centrally located that it
had to be a vital port for shipping back in the day of sailboats,
for supplies and the layover and so on. But at some point
in his travels, Paul preached across this island, and in many
of the cities there were groups of people who believed and gathered
on a regular basis to worship God. And they, no doubt, conversed
as best they could with Paul and other believers. And because
of its location being perfectly located for shipping, a great
port and no doubt had a favorable climate, it more than likely
had a diverse population. Because I'm looking at it on
a map, and here's Italian people, and here's Syrian people over
here, and Egyptians down below, and Israelites over here kind
of to the right, and so on. It had to have a diverse population. And where there's a diversity
of cultures, there is a diversity of religion. From the Roman perspective, it
was said to be the birthplace of Jupiter, the god of thunder
and lightning. By the same token, the Greeks
who also populated that island said it was the birthplace of
Zeus, And he's the god of thunder and of lightning. And also, it said, from their
Italian influence. And it's much the way Islam has
done here in recent years to this country. It comes in with
a culture. It comes in with a people. And
then it begins to mix with what's already here. And that's the way I picture
these people on the island of Crete. And I'm telling you those
things because of the similarity to it to where we are. It's the
same thing. The mind of fallen man, the carnal
man, is enmity against God. But it's more than receptive
to any kind of superstitious junk that comes its way. That
mind hates God. It hates the truth. It hates
the scriptures. Boy, don't men get mad when you
say, well, let's see what it says. Whoa, whoa, whoa. One man said he didn't care what
it said. And that's the truth with most
people. They just won't say it. This mind is more than receptive
to any kind of superstition. And to be carnally minded, Paul
said, is death. It's death. World, as the term
is used in the scripture, not always talking about the planet
we live on or the multitude that live on it. That word world,
a lot of times, is referring to what's in man, not where man is. Look at Titus chapter 2. verses
11 and 12. Let me show you that. For the grace of God that bringeth
salvation hath appeared to all men. This is talking about the
gospel of Christ. That's what he's talking about.
That's how that grace is given to man. And it teaches us that
denying ungodliness, what is ungodliness? and everything contrary to God. That's ungodly. Now watch this. And worldly lusts. What does it mean to be worldly?
Paul describes it in detail in Ephesians chapter 2 talking about
those dead in trespasses and sins wherein in time past you
walked according to what? The course of this world. He's not talking about a direction
necessarily, but he's talking about the basis of their reasoning,
their concept of God, their concept of right and wrong, those principles
by which their life was laid out. You walked according to the course
of this world, but that's not the end of it. The course of
this world is according to the Prince of the Power of the Edge.
the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,
wherein in time past we all had our conversation, our behavior,
in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as others." Listen to these scriptures. If
you were of the world, The world would love its own, but you're
not of the world. I've chosen you out of the world. In 1 John chapter 4, John said,
Ye are of God's little children, and have overcome them, because
greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world. He said, They are of the world.
Therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. He
said, we are of God. He that is of God, heareth us.
You see what I'm saying? This thing about this world,
this world. Man is a prisoner of his own
inabilities. And his nature, his nature is
the bars that confine him. He can't break free from his
nature. It's a prison cell. Ruined by
the fall is the doctrine of it, idolatry is the experience of
it, and Satan is the source of it, and blindness is the effect
of it. Fallen man. Now I said all that to say this.
Gospel preaching begins with a personal experience, a spiritual
experience of grace. That's where it begins. Listen to what Paul says to Titus.
He's writing to him. He wants him to go to these groups
and set in order things that are wanting. They needed pastors. They needed to understand the
Lord's table and baptism. They needed instruction. They
needed order. And they needed somebody appointed
over. And here's what he says. Titus chapter 3 verse 3. For
we ourselves were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving
divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and
hating one another. Why? I thought preachers come
from families where that wasn't practiced. No, he just picked
one out of the world. He's just as ignorant, just as
big a sinner. You see what I'm saying? We are
sinners. Paul's talking about himself. But, he said, after the kindness
and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of
righteousness which we've done, it wasn't a reward for something
that we did, but according to His mercy He saved us. And 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. I have two questions I want to
ask, and by the grace of God, answer this morning. The first
thing I want to deal with is what is regeneration? I hear all the time, you must
be born again, you must be born again. I hear the phrase even
on television, born again Christian. Born again Christian. What is regeneration? What is
it? It's not enough to just mimic
the word, to spit out the word. What is it? It's not going to
benefit me if I don't know what it's talking about. And then
secondly, how does this regeneration cleanse those who are born of
God? So let's look at these things,
and I want us to look at them from the Word of God. Everybody
has an opinion. Everybody. I hear them talk all
the time about this thing of regeneration, speaking in tongues,
and doing this and doing that, and faith healing, and all the
rhetoric. What does God say it is? That's
what I want to know. I can't examine myself if I don't
know what it is. And I want to know what God says
it is. So what is regeneration? Well, let's start with the word
itself. Regeneration means literally reborn. It has all kind of, you
can get all kind of information, but here's the term, reborn. And thus he talks about being
born again. When our Lord spoke to Nicodemus
about being born again, Nicodemus, now, think about who Nicodemus
was, he's a Pharisee. He's a master theologian, art
thou a master in Israel and you don't know these things? He's
a master theologian, he's got his degree, he's got the backing
of the Israel Church, I suppose you
would call it, behind him. He's got all the credentials. And the Lord talks to him about
being born again, and he said, he replied, how can a man be
born when he's old? He didn't run to the Word of
God. He's a master theologian. He knew the prophets. You quote
a scripture, he could tell you who said it. And so can most
of these Men with master degrees in theology. But it don't tell
me what being born again is. And Nicodemus didn't run to the
Word of God and say, well, it says here, or Isaiah said, or
Jeremiah said. What'd he do? He run to his natural
reasoning. Isn't that what we all do? That
first place we go. Well, that don't seem right.
Really? Based on what? How can a man be born when he's
old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and
be born? And herein lies the problem with
men and that need for cleansing. He went immediately to fleshly
reasoning instead of the Word of God. So let's look at the
Word this morning and let me give you four things that God
says about this new birth. First of all, he tells us in
James chapter 1, verse 18, that regeneration is the act of God's
sovereign will. That's what it is. Oh, it ain't
man's will. You be willing if He regenerates
you. But this is talking about God's
will, of His own will Begat he us. Well, if we let him. You reckon
when God spoke the universe into existence, the universe gave
him permission to do it? Well, that's just how silly it
is for a man to start talking about willing for God to do something. God does what he wills. Who's
going to resist him? Who art thou, O man, that replyest
against God? Shall the thing formed say to
him that formed it, Why'st thou made me thus? Of his own will
begat he us. And John chapter 1 had established
that neither the world that Christ had created, nor the nation that
he had separated out of it, would receive God's Christ. He made the world. His fingerprints
is all over it, in the order of it, what it symbolized. It
was made for him. Everything in it speaks of him.
But the world received him not. And now here's a people. And
these people are special people. They have a great advantage over
the world. God spoke to them. He gave them
His Word. But they wouldn't receive Him
either. And then here's the miracle. Some did. Why? Why? How? The world wouldn't
have it. People wouldn't have it. Why
did these people receive Him? Here it is. As many as received
Him. That's who He's talking about. To them gave He power to become
the sons of God. Huh? He gave them power. He gave them
the ability. And He's not talking about gave
them the opportunity. He gave them power to become sons of God. You think about
that. Actually become sons of God,
even to them that believe on his name, which were born. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. They were born, not of blood, not of the will of the flesh,
and not of the will of man, but of God. Born of God. an act of God's sovereign will. It's God, Paul said, that worketh
in you both to what? Will. Oh, my soul. You talk about affection. When
God does a work, it's affection. Why? Because he wills it to be
done. He predestinated us under the
adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to
his good pleasure. Read on down there about redemption,
about all those things. According to His sovereign will.
That's right. According to the good pleasure
of His will. We're born again by the sovereign
will of God. And then secondly, regeneration
takes place by way of the gospel seed. Where there is no seed,
there can be no birth. He shows us that in animals and
men. He shows us that. There has to
be a seed. I'm going to put within it a
seed, he said, and it will produce after its kind. But it ain't
producing anything apart from a seed. You take a... What's the word I want? You take
a plant out here and you hybridize it. And it produces just a little
bit of seed. You go plant it and it don't
grow nothing. How come? So God put that seed in it, that
original seed, and it's going to produce after it's kind. You're not going to plant a corn
seed and harvest soybeans. You're going to harvest corn
after it's kind. And the same thing with me. Where
there is no seed, there can be no birth. Peter said, being born
again, not of corruptible seed. That word, look it up, is semen. That's what he's talking about. Not by corruptible semen. Not by Adam's semen or Jewish
semen. But of incorruptible by the Word
of God, which liveth and abideth forever. Verse 25. Word of the
Lord endureth forever, and this is the word which by the gospel
is preached unto you. This is the gospel seed. The seed of life. Listen to this
over in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. They were arguing among themselves. Who was converted under who?
I was converted under Apollos. Not me, I was converted under
Paul. He's an apostle. And Paul said, aren't you carnal, thinking that
way? Isn't that the carnal mind, reasoning
those things? Who then is Paul, and who is
a polished minister by whom you believe, even as the Lord gave
to every man? Now watch this. I have planted,
planted what? Gospel seed. And a polished what? What did he water? Gospel seed. So then neither is he that planteth
anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase. Most I can do is plant the seed. And if I go to another church,
like up in Iowa, the best I can do is just water the seed that's
been planted. So how does the growth come about? God giveth the increase. That's
right, it's the work of God. Of his own will begat he us,
now listen to this, with the word of truth. That's how his
children are begotten, with the word of truth. And Christ said,
I am the truth. James said, we're to lay aside
all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, that is abundance
of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted Word,
which is able to save your souls. And then he said, and to be doers
of the Word and not hearers only. New birth is like an to a grafting
in of something not natural to its nature. In Romans 11, 24,
he talks about us, the Gentiles, being cut out of the wild olive
tree, which is wild by nature, and grafted contrary to nature
into a good olive tree. And our Lord said, I'm the vine,
and my father is the husband man. I am the vine, you are the
branches. He that abideth in me and I in
him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me you
do nothing. Regeneration requires gospel
seed and a gospel sower. That's just so. How are you going
to hear without preaching? We could hear in a book. In the
scriptures we could have people come up with all kinds of notions,
but that's not what God said. Not what he said. He said it pleased God through
the foolishness of preaching to save them. That's what God
said. Regeneration requires a gospel
seed and a gospel sower. And then the third thing I know
about regeneration is what is produced. Now we're going to
get down to it. Turn with me to 1 Peter chapter
1. I read men, and they're all over
the place with this. All over the place with their
ideas of what the new birth is, and very few even bother with
a scriptural explanation. It's usually something derived
by their experience. And they'll tell you something. But in 1 Peter 1 verse 3 it says,
He hath begotten us again, now listen, unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead. Strictly speaking, what's born
in us is a hope. That's what's born. That's what's
there that wasn't there before. A hope. A hope. And this hope is in a person. Paul said in Colossians 1.25,
I'm made a minister according to the stewardship of God which
is given to me for you to fulfill the Word of God. Even the mystery
which has been hid from ages and generations but now is made
manifest to his saints, to whom God would make known what is
the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which
is Christ in you." Now listen, the hope of glory. That's what's born. That's what's
born. What's born in us is a hope of
glory, a hope of being an heir of God, have our sins put away,
to be clothed in a perfect righteousness and be reconciled to God, to
have a good and substantial hope of acceptance with God and admission
into heaven and eternal presence with God and His Son. A hope,
that's what's born. That's what's born. That's what
could never be there before because we didn't know who Christ was.
And He can never be apart from us. Regeneration is not some
power in this place to get better and better. Some kind of religious
evolution that men talk about. What's sometimes called progressive
sanctification. That's a bunch of junk. If you
see it on the cover of a book, don't buy it. And somebody hands
you one, don't read it. It's junk. Regeneration is being
renewed in the spirit of your mind. That's what it is. Ephesians 4, 23. It's putting
on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and
true holiness. Understanding that Christ is
my representative. He's my substitute. And through
Him I have a perfect righteousness. Through Him I appear before God
as He is. Herein is love, love in its purest
form, as He is, so am I in this world. You think about that. And let
me tell you something. God can't accept anything less. Anything less than His Son. Put on the new man. which after
God is created in righteousness and true holiness that is created
in us by faith. We see that perfect man. We lay
hold of that perfect man. We hope in that perfect man.
Regeneration is having Christ formed in us. Seeing the Galatians carried
about into serious error, Paul said, my little children. Now
listen to how he says it. My little children of whom I
travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you. That's what it is. Christ our
Lord, Christ our Savior, Christ our intercessor, Christ our high
priest, Christ our King. Christ. It's to enter into that rest
and assurance that Christ is all and in all. Am I born of
God? I don't know. Tell me what your
hope is. Tell me what your hope is. Get rid of all that religious
rhetoric and it comes down to this. Believing on His Son. And then fourthly, how is this
hope sustained? By the same means by which it
was given. Gospel preaching and the power
of God's Spirit. That's how it's maintained. There's
a wonderful message by Bruce Crabtree, The Spiritual Presence
of Christ. If you get a chance, look it
up on Sermon Audio and listen to it. Here's what our Lord said. It
is expedient for you, but I go away. It's expedient. It's not just an option. I'm
not just doing this and I could do something else. It's expedient
for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter
will not come. He's not going to come unto you,
but if I depart, I'll send him unto you. And when he's come,
what's he going to do? Oh, he's going to appear in all
kind of sensuality and he's gonna, oh, he's just gonna feel a thing
full of music and people gonna sway. No, no. When he's come, he'll guide you
into all truth. Man stands up there and preaches.
You'll say, that's it. Or you'll say, he's nuts. Holy
Spirit guides you. He guides you. He don't guide
you outside the means God has ordained. It's through the means.
And when He comes, He'll guide you into all truth. Watch this. He won't speak of Himself. Now
I'm telling you, anybody you know, and all they talk about
is the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit. They
don't know the Holy Spirit. He's not going to speak of Himself.
He's God. He's as much God as the Son or
the Father. But it's the will of God that
the work of the Spirit speaks of Christ. He calls Him the Spirit
of Christ. Well, how do you know if you
have the Spirit? Do you have Christ? Because you can't have
Him apart from the Spirit. But if you have Christ and you
believe on Christ, you have the Spirit of God. Whatsoever he shall hear, that
shall he speak, and he's going to show you things to come. He's
going to show you the success of gospel preaching. It's going
to come. It's going to come. They're coming today, Christ
said, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God,
and they that hear shall live. We're living in that day. He's
going to show you things to come. He's going to show you the conversion
of sinners. He's going to show you the success
of the ministry. He's going to show you the establishing
of God's church in this world, and He's going to show you something
about the return of Christ and eternal judgment. He's going
to glorify me, Christ said, for He shall take of mine and
show it unto you. And we're kept by the power of
God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed at the last
time. And that revelation is going
on even now. And faith cometh by hearing,
hearing by the word of the Lord. Okay, so that's the first. What
is regeneration? I've given you as much as I know
from the scripture about regeneration. It's the sovereign will of God. It's through the means ordained
of God. It's through gospel seed. All right, here's the second
question. How is regeneration a cleansing to those born of
God? Well, it's a cleansing, first
of all, from the limitations of this sinful flesh. Without
me, Christ said, you can do nothing. The natural man, it says, receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God. He's not going to receive
the Scriptures. He's not going to receive the
preaching of the Gospel. He's not going to receive the
means of faith. He's not going to repent. The
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.
Why? Fleshly reasoning. There's foolishness under him. Everything in him that he has
to reason what he's hearing makes him unable to hear. Everything, all this foolishness,
all this religious rhetoric, all of it, that's what makes
him, that's where his inability is and his unwillingness. It's
a cleansing from the limitations of this cursed flesh. So who
is the natural man? He's the one left to himself. A man told me one time, leave
me alone. Boy, you don't want that. You
don't want that. This is a man left to his own
reasoning, left to his own ideas and interpretations, left to
his enmity of mind and hatred for God. He's the old man, the
fallen man, the self-righteous man. And without me, Christ said,
you can do nothing. And this whole process is a spiritual
cleansing. A cleansing from our limitations.
It's a cleansing from deceit and lies. Yvonne said she got
mad the first time she heard the gospel. She said, somebody's
lied to me. These men have lied to me. Yes,
they did. Yes, they do. It's a cleansing
from deceit and lies. It's a cleansing from the flesh.
I can't trust this flesh. Don't look to this flesh. That's
where we get in so much trouble. That's why we're so despondent
at times. We're trying to look for help in a black hole. It's
just not there. It's a cleansing from the flesh
and it's a cleansing from false religion. False religion is born
of Satan. You are of your father the devil,
Christ said. And Satan's desire is to dethrone
Christ. You can read about it over in
Isaiah 14. It was stated in glory the whole
purpose of God in salvation. And Satan said, no, no, no, no. A man's not going to sit on the
throne. I'm going to sit on the throne. It's to dethrone Christ, it's
to take his place, and it's to rule over God's saints. He's
anti-God, he's anti-Scripture, and he's anti-Christ. I've heard men say this my whole
life, my God wouldn't do like that. He probably wouldn't, but
the living God will. It's not by works of righteousness
which we've done, but according to his mercy he saved us. Saved
us from what? From the God of this world. If
our gospel be hid, it's hid to the lost in whom the God of this
world has blinded their minds. He saves us from the prince of
the power of the air, from placely reasoning and carnal understanding.
from the influence of the world and all that's considered truth
by then? And how does he do this? By the
washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Ghost. And this he
shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. That's
how we're able to know these things. That being justified
by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of
eternal life, which hope is Christ in us. May God be pleased today
to reveal His Son in us to this glorious end, to give us a hope. Oh, if Christ is my hope, what's
going to happen? I'm going to want to be like
Him. Have you ever met somebody, and they were just a doggone
talented and nice looking and got a great attitude and boy
you see him, man I wish I was more like him. What do you suppose a man would
do who could see Christ in His glory? Oh, I want to be like
Him, don't you? That's what happens. That's what
happens. We want to be like Him. If Christ
is my hope, I'm going to gather with those of like precious faith. We all hoping the same thing,
we all want the same thing, we all want to hear the same thing. Those who gather in His name
are those you're going to spend eternity with. And if Christ
is my hope, I'm going to despise myself. I'm not going to go around
with my thumbs in my lapel. No, no, you're going to hate
yourself. That's what David said, I hate myself. When you gonna
do that? When you see what you are in
Christ. You gonna hate yourself. If Christ is my hope, then my
way is the way of mercy and grace. That's the renewing of the Holy
Ghost. Something new. Something marvelous. Something that you can't deny
to be the work of God. That's what I'm trying to preach.
I hope I've done a little bit this morning.