That is chapter 3. Let's begin
reading here in verse 3. For we ourselves also were sometimes
foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures,
living in malice and envy and 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. We've really come here to verse
4 where he says, but after, but after, and I was thinking of
this as I studied this. I thought really this is an intervention. It's an intervention. That's
basically what this verse tells us about here, an intervention.
We hear a lot about that today. They've got programs on You know,
someone is addicted to drugs or alcohol or their lives are
spiraled out of control and the family members get together and
have an intervention to deliver somebody from their addiction
or whatever. And we looked last week at verse
3 at the sad and sinful and really dangerous, dangerous situation
that condition that the Apostle Paul described for himself and
Titus and for us also. And what a hopeless condition
we saw that was. We looked at that verse and we
saw ourselves there, didn't we? I mean, we look at that in the
sense, could this be the Apostle Paul serving divers' lust and
pleasure? How could that be? But it was
the heart. That's the heart sin of this
man. And what a hopeless situation
that he was in and Titus was in and you and I were in also. But then we come to this blessed
verse, but after, but after the kindness and love of God our
Savior towards man appeared. And you know you see some of
these intervention shows and boy, some people get mad when
they try to intervene and stop their addiction. Some of them
resist the intervention. Aren't you glad? Aren't you glad
when the Lord intervened in your life that He intervened in such
a way that you could not resist Him? You did not resist Him. You dare not resist Him. And
it didn't make you mad, did it? Boy, it didn't make you mad.
At first, it scared you. But I tell you, at the end of
it, it made you glad, gave you joy that God had been pleased
to intervene and save you, give thanks unto Him. When we read
verse 3 here, we know that this is God's estimation of us, what
we were, and we know it's the truth. We know it's the truth. But after He saves us, We see
more and more of this awful situation that we were in. If you had sat
me down and explained verse 3 to me right after the Lord saved
me, I probably wouldn't have grasped very much of that. Just
about all I knew when the Lord saved me was I was a guilty sinner.
But we learn more and more about ourselves, don't we? We know
more about ourselves now than we did when the Lord first saved
us. As we read the Scriptures, we see what God says of us, our
sinful nature and the working of sin in us, and we say, Boy,
that's the truth. That's the absolute truth. That's
what we are. We're such sinners. Such sinners. So these are the characteristics
we saw here in verse 3. We just went through them one
by one, one by one. Boy, we saw Him there. But we
also said the more we see of our condition, the more we bless
God that He did intervene in our life and saved us from this
awful, awful state, this downward spiral we were in. And why did
He do it? That is what verse 4 tells us.
The motive for Him doing it, His kindness. But after that,
the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared. The cause for him doing it was
found in himself and not in us. Paul went right on to say, ìNot
by works of righteousness, which weíve done.î It wasnít that God
looked down through time and saw, ìBoy, theyíre different.
That manís different.î It wasnít that He looked within and said,
ìThereís something I can work with.î But the cause of His intervention
was found in Himself. after that the kindness and love
of God our Savior towards man appeared. And you know when we
look, when we look not only at our own condition and God intervening
in our life, we see this, we see this, but we see this when
our Lord Jesus first came into this world. Back between the
Old and the New Testament, look what a mess the world was in. When the Lord Jesus Christ came
to this world, look what a mess it was in. It was an awful mess,
wasn't it? Paul tells us this when he was
writing to the Gentile worlds. He says, You know that you were
carried away unto dumb idols. You go through the book of Acts
and that's what you see all over the world was people serving
idols and communion with devils. When the Lord Jesus Christ came
into this world, it was an intervention, wasn't it? He came into a dark,
perishing world and He didn't come because He saw something
in this world that attracted Him. Why did He come? Reasons found in Himself. Even the Jewish nation was in
a most deplorable condition spiritually and morally, it was amazing. Brother Larry mentioned this
the other day. It's amazing when the Lord Jesus began His ministry
among the Jews. Isn't it amazing the multitudes
that were filled with devils? I mean, that was just a small
country, but multitudes! He cast the devil out of multitudes,
causing blindness and dumbness and deafness. all kinds of sicknesses. It's always been amazing to me
that that country had been so invaded by devils, that little
country. So when He came to the Jews,
I tell you, they were in darkness, weren't they? They were in just
as deplorable condition as the Gentile world itself. And here's
what said of them when the Lord Jesus came to that nation, those
who sat in darkness saw a great light. That's the way it's described. That whole nation was in darkness. And it was into this darkness
and hopeless world, the Son of God intervened. And when the
angels announced His birth, they said, We bring you good tidings
of great joy, which shall be to all men, for unto you is born
a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. That's good news, wasn't
it? A savior for this world. That's
an intervention. Intervention. And he said, Glory
to God in the highest and on earth peace and goodwill. Goodwill. You know what kindness
means? I looked this up in Webster.
After the kindness and love of God towards man appeared. You
know what Webster says the definition of kindness? Goodwill. It's goodwill
of God towards men. I looked this word up and see
how our translators translate it in other places. And they
translated this word kindness, the kindness of God, in Romans
2.4, it's the goodness of God. The goodness of God leadeth you
to repentance. Galatians 5.22, it's the gentleness
of God. The fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness. Gentleness. The gentleness of
God. After that, the gentleness of
God. So salvation is an intervention
on God's part. And what's this intervention
attributed to? The goodness of God. The kindness
of God. The gentleness of God. Here in our text in verses 4
through verse 6, Paul often does this, the writers
does this, but Paul says before us here, a triune Savior. Here
in verse 4, but after that the kindness and love of God our
Savior towards man appeared, there's the Father. He's a kind
Savior. Look in verse 5, not the 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." And He is telling us here the Holy Ghost saved
us. What was His part in salvation? Regenerating us. And verse 6,
"...which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior."
Here we have one God manifest this. these three wonderful persons,
saviors, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit,
being justified freely by His grace. He gives us the reason
here in verses 4 through 5. What was it in God? His kindness
and love. In verse 5, what was it in the
Holy Spirit? His mercy. And what was it in
the Lord Jesus Christ? His grace. These are attributes,
saving attributes found in God our Savior, in the triune God
our Savior. And this is who intervened and
stopped us in our mad dash to utter ruin and saved us. Paul does this in some more places
we're very familiar with. Look over here in Ephesians chapter
2. Here's one of the places we often mention when we think about us on this downward spiral to
perish. Paul has been talking here in
verse 2 and verse 3 about, look at this in Ephesians 2 and verses
2, We are in, and time passed. You walked according to the course
of this world, according to the prince of the power of the hour,
the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.
This is the way you walked. among whom also we all had our
conversation. We all lived this way in time
past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the
flesh and mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as
others." And look at this divine intervention. who is rich in
mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace
you are saved. And he said in verse 6, And hath
raised us up together, and made us set together in heavenly places
in Christ, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding
riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
That's another intervention, isn't it? And he uses the same
attributes here in this passage that he used over in Titus chapter
3. Mercy and grace and love and
kindness. You find all of those in here. It seems like that God is out
to get Himself a great name for His attributes of love and mercy
and kindness and grace. Look over here at another place.
Paul does this in 1 Timothy. Back over to your right, 1 Timothy
chapter 1 and look here in verse 12. Look in verse 12. He makes it
real personal here to himself. Look what he says, 1 Timothy
chapter 1 verse 12, I thank Jesus Christ our Lord who hath enabled
me, for that he counted me faithful, put him into the ministry, who
was before a blasphemer, and persecutor, and injurious. But I obtained mercy, because
I did it ignorantly and unbelief, or you got your mercy, and the
grace of our Lord Jesus was exceeding abundant with faith and love
which is in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into the world
to save sinners of whom I am sheep." And he went on in verse
16 to say that he was a pattern to them that should believe on
Jesus Christ. So the coming of Christ into
this world was an intervention. It stopped the downward spiral
of this world from perishing. Not everybody, but I tell you,
He saved a great host out of it. And He comes to all of us,
all His elect, and He intervenes in them, and He brings it right
down here to a personal intervenes personally and you know you and
I have to bring it right down home to our own lives, don't
we? He intervened in our life. He stopped our headlong into
ruin. Before the Lord intervened and
saved us, we weren't getting better. We weren't becoming more spiritual,
were we? We weren't getting closer to
God. As we grew older, we got further
away. Our descent into ruin was not
slowing down. If anything, it was speeding
up. Someone made the comment to me the other day. They said,
Have you ever noticed that the Lord doesn't save very many older
people? I think we've talked about this,
Wayne, before. You don't see the Lord saving people your age.
You just don't do it, do you? It seems like as people get older,
they get more hardened. Sin has a hardening effect, doesn't
it, upon you? And you get more set in your
ways and you don't want to hear the Gospel. You're just basically
deceived more than ever. So we don't get better as we
get older. If anything, we get worse. Have
you ever tried to talk to an older person about the Lord?
I have. I tell you, most of the time it's absolutely useless.
It's just absolutely useless. I was 23 years old. I was sort
of young when the Lord saved me. But you know, I wasn't getting
any better. And I've often wondered, Lord,
what would I have been today, 66 years old, if you hadn't intervened
and saved me? What would I have been were I
been? I tell you this much, I wouldn't
have been saved. I wouldn't have been saved. I'd still been lost.
And what we're stressing this afternoon is that to save a man,
there has to be an intervention. There has to be an intervention.
And it has to be done by God. He's the one that has to intervene.
And what motivates Him to do it, the cause of Him doing it
is found in Himself. It's love and His tender mercy. I tell you, He intervened. He's
going to intervene and save us or He's going to intervene and
destroy us. He intervened in this world about a few thousand
years ago. in Genesis chapter 6 and he destroyed
it, didn't he? And he's going to intervene again.
He's going to stop it and he's going to destroy it again. But
right now, right now, his kindness and his love is causing him to
intervene and save a great multitude out of Adam's race. But it's
owing to his love and it's owing to his kindness. The world turns
every spiritual thing upside down and gets it backward and
it twists it until they have made no sense of it whatsoever.
It has nothing to do with God's glory or man's spiritual good. It just leaves it empty and vain. And I say that for this reason.
We're told today that God has to see something in you. He has
to see something in you before He can do anything. That you
got His hands tied, that you got Him bound, you got Him over
a barrel. How silly that is! When does the Lord come to us?
When we're on this downward spiral to hell and we're bad and dead
in sins, that's when He intervenes, isn't it? But man gets everything
screwed up, don't he? Between the Old and the New Testament,
we're told that the Jewish nation was looking for the Messiah.
They said He's coming, the Messiah's coming. But you know what their
main point was, what hindered Him from coming? They said He
cannot come until the nation is worthy. That was the common
theme between the Old and the New Testament. He cannot come
until... Well, if that's so, then He's
not coming. If that's so, he would have never
come, would he? But see how screwed up man is?
He's just absolutely screwed up, isn't he? He turns everything
upside down. They turned an intervention on
his part onto something merited on their part. And the world is still doing
that. That's why it's so important, as we said last week, for us
to study these passages and try to get down to the heart of them
and really see what they teach. Because it teaches us more about
ourselves and more about God and how He saves sinners. And
He saves them by an intervention. And He intervenes by what's found
in Himself, love and kindness. Joe and I used to watch a lot
of Hallmark Christmas movies. This time of year, we used to
watch them. We still watch them, son, but I've noticed through
the years, and Jo gets aggravated because she can't watch a Hallmark
movie anymore because I'm sitting there sneering and laughing or
disgusted. Years ago, we started out watching the Hallmark movies
this time of year, the Christmas movies. And years ago, they had
some real good movies, decent movies. You can't find anything
decent on TV to watch. But these were decent movies. But they had a theme to them.
And the theme was Jesus Christ, the Son of God, had come to this
earth and had an element of faith in it. Do you believe that? Do
you believe that? But through the years I've watched
it go down and down. It went from that to Santa Claus.
Don't you believe in Santa Claus? You know how they are. If you
believe in Santa Claus, oh, the mystery of Santa Claus. And if
you've watched any movie this year, I mean, they have really
went down. This year, they've gone to fate.
Fate. The mystery of fate. How could
this be? They say, oh, it's fate. There's
a mystery of fate. Do you believe in fate? And I'm
sitting there, I'm thinking, oh, my goodness. Ain't this pathetic. Ain't this pathetic. But you
know, that's what the world does. That's what the world does. They'll
take something that even has an element of good in it. And by the time they get finished
with it, man, it's a mess. I was talking to my wife about
when our granddaughters went to the high school Christmas
sing last night. And we used to go to those. And when the Lord first saved
me, we went to high school singings. And you could worship. I went to some of those high
school singings, Christmas singings, and you could worship at those
singings. We went, and here's the kind
of songs they would sing. Joy to the world, the Lord is
come. Let earth receive her King. Let every heart prepare Him room,
and heaven and nature sing. and heaven and nature sing. Joy
to the world, the Savior reigns. Let men their songs employ, while
fields and floods and rocks and hills and plains repeat the sound
of joy. And listen to this, Isaac Watts
said, No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make His blessings
flow, for as the curse is found, far as the curse is found. And this old Wesley song, they
used to sing this. High school kids sung this when
you went to high school, sang, Come thou long expected Jesus,
born to set thy people free. From our fears and sins release
us, let us find our rest in thee. Born thy people to deliver, born
to child and ye to king, born to reign in us forever, Now thy
gracious kingdom bring. By thine own eternal Spirit,
rule in all our hearts alone. By thine all-sufficient merit,
raise us to thy glorious throne. They used to sing that. And this
one by Charles Wesley that they used to sing, and what an amazing
song it is. Hark the herald angels sing.
Glory to the newborn King, peace on earth and mercy mild, God
and sinners reconciled. Isn't that wonderful? Have you ever been to a Christmas
song lately? Don't go. It's stupid. They don't sing
these songs anymore. Here comes Santa Claus at best. Listen to this, Christ by highest
heaven adored, Christ the everlasting Lord, laid in time, behold He
came, offspring of a virgin's womb, veiled in flesh, the Godhead
saved, hail the incarnate Deity. They used to sing these songs. But just like the world, what
did they do? It's nothing. And when you're talking about
the Lord saving sinners, they'll say something like this. Well,
you know, here's what God does. He comes alongside of us and
He whispers to us, I'd love to have a relationship with you. I want to walk with you. I want
to be a part of your life. Ain't that what we hear? Is that
what our text says? That's what I'm getting at. What
does our text say? Here we are awful sinners on
a downhill sparrow to hell. We're not walking along and just
need for God to step in our path. We're going the wrong way. We're
going in the opposite direction. God has to intervene and stop
us and save us or we're going to perish. And that's what we learn in our
text, isn't it? That's what we learn in our text. That's what
these old hymns taught us, a need for reconciliation, a need for
divine intervention. And I tell you, when we see ourselves
converted like the Scripture says we're converted, I tell
you, it has an element to it that awakens us. It awakens our
hearts to bless God and worship Him and cast contempt upon ourselves
and never give ourselves any glory at all and humbly walk
with Him. This other thing leads to pride.
I want a relationship with Him. He doesn't want a relationship
with us, does He? He's going to reconcile us to Himself by
His Son, Jesus Christ. But we see this in our lives,
in our Christian lives, even today. It's not just a one-time
intervention. He intervenes and saves us. But
you know, we see this in our Christian life on occasion, don't
we? We bless God for times of intervention, sometimes when
trials come into your life, and they're deep trials. persecutions
come, and it seems like you're walking in darkness. And sometimes
it seems like, boy, you just lost all hope. And the fear grips
you and concern grips you. Will I ever get through this? And then what happens? He intervenes,
doesn't he? What does he do? He reveals this
kindness. He manifests His love and His
faithfulness, and it picks you up and gets you back up. And
you bless Him once again that He's intervened in your life,
and you give Him glory for it. If you can find the little book
Micah, if you go to the New Testament,
the last chapter in the Old Testament, Malachi, and just start turning
to your left, you come to Zechariah. and you come to Zephaniah and
Nahum and Habakkuk, just keep turning to Micah. If you need
to, go over to the front of your Bible and find that book, Micah. I have trouble finding some of
these small books myself. But look here, what he says about
this intervention, where his faith is, where his faith is.
Micah, look what a dreadful place, situation he found himself in,
a dreadful place. In Micah chapter 7, And look
in verse 1. Woe is me! Now here is a believer
talking. Woe is me! For I am as when they
have gathered the summer fruit. It is gone. As the grape gleaners
of the vineyard, there is no cluster to eat. My soul desireth
the first ripe fruit. The good man is purged out of
the earth. And there are none upright among
men. They all lie and wait for blood. They hunt every man his brother
with a net, that they may do evil with both hands earnestly.
The prince asketh, and the judgeth asketh for reward. And the great
man, he uttereth his mischievous desire, so they wrap it up."
What schemers! What cheats! The best of them
is as a briar. The most upright is sharper than
a thorned hedge. The day of thy watchment and
of thy visitation cometh. How shall be their perplexity? Now shall be their perplexity.
Trust ye not in a friend? Put ye not confidence in a guide? Keep the doors of your mouth
from her that lieth in thy bosom. For the son doth honor the father,
the daughter rises up against the mother, The daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law. A man's enemies are they of his
own house. That's what the Master told us,
wouldn't you? Now look at this. Therefore I will look unto the
Lord. I will wait for the God of my
salvation. My God will hear me. Rejoice
not against me, O my enemy. When I fall, I shall arise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord
shall be a light unto me. I will bear the indignation of
the Lord, because I have sinned against Him, until He plead my
cause and execute judgment for me. He will bring me forth to
the light, and I shall behold His righteousness. Then she that
is my enemy shall see it, and shame shall cover her which said
unto me, Where is the Lord thy God? And look in verse 18, Who
is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth
by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He retaineth
not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy. He will
turn again, he will have compassion upon us, he will subdue our iniquities,
and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depth of the sea. Isn't that wonderful? He was
in a bad situation, wasn't he? In a bad situation. And I don't know where we're
going to be before this thing's over with, do you? I've lived for a while now with
the hope that things are going to get better in my family. My
family's an absolute mess. But you know things may get worse.
It may get worse. I've got some own personal trials
in my life that I've struggled with now for two or three years.
And I live in the hope that maybe these things are going to get
lighter, but they may get heavier. We talk about what happened in
politics, and a dear man told me the other day that he feels
like God has given us somewhat of reprieve. He stopped the downward
spiral that we've been in now for years. I hope that's the
case. But we may go downhill quicker. But where do we look to when
we're in these messes? Micah didn't say, if I fall,
did he? He said, when I fall. When I
fall. What's going to happen when you
fall? Where's your hope at? When you sit in darkness and
you're going to face some dark times before you leave this world.
You and I are going through some long, dark valleys. Where's our
faith at? When I sit in darkness, the Lord
shall be enlightened to me. The longer I live, brothers and
sisters, the more assurance I gain and the more comfort I gain by
not looking to myself and my circumstances. to look outside
myself to see what's in God, those wonderful things that's
in Him to intervene and help me and keep me and take me to
heaven at last. And the more that I'm stressed
with these things and the more I find myself in darkness and
the more I find myself fallen, the more I have to look outside
of myself and see those things in Him. that can save me and
keep me and lift me up. And I think that's when He's
glorified. That's why I guess sometimes He brings us into these
places. Poor old Hezekiah. Remember the Lord told him, set
his house in order because you're going to die? And he turned his
head towards the wall. He knew if the Lord didn't intervene,
he's going to die. And he turned his head towards
the wall and he sought the Lord. He looked away from his sickness
and diseases. Look to the Lord. And the Lord
delivered him, didn't He? And He said, You brought up my
life from corruption. Jonah was in the bottom of the
sea in that dark place. He said, You cast me out from
Your presence. But what did He say? What did
He say? I'll look again towards Thy holy
temple. And what did He say? You brought
up my life, just like old Hezekiah did. brought up my life from
death, from the bars of death. And I'm just saying that as you
and I realize initially that the Lord has intervened to save
us, and boy, now the message that sometimes we can get in
to places where we're so weak and feeble and comfortless, we
look to Him. See in Him everything that's
needed to keep you and to deliver you from every situation that
you can find yourself in. Peter said it like this, gird
up the loins of your mind and hope to the end. For what? For the grace that is to be brought
unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. We're saved by
grace. We'll still be saved by grace.
And we'll be saved by grace in the end. It will take as much
grace in God to save us when we've ended our Christian life
as it did to save us when He first saved us and regenerates.
It's not that He saves us by grace and we go off in trust
in ourselves. Peter said, look in. looking,
hoping to the end for that grace. And Jude said it like this, Keep
yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our
Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. Aren't you glad those things
are in God? Those saving attributes are in
Him? That's our hope, isn't it? That's where we always must be
looking, to God and what's in Him to save us. And He'll take
a divine intervention at the resurrection of the dead. Did
you know that? He'll take a divine intervention
there at the resurrection of the dead to bring these poor
old helpless, decayed, vile bodies out of the ground and bring us
up to heaven. When we see our old
bodies, that's what we should do sometimes. Just look. Look
down. And see yourself laying there
in the casket. Wanda standing there close by
somewhere. And there you are in that casket. And what are they going to do
with you? They're going to take you out and put you in the ground.
See yourself being lowered down in that dirt. And you know if
this world stands long enough, they go back and dig that casket
up, there's not going to be anything there. If you're dead long enough,
You know, you're going to pretty much decay. You're going to rot.
And you look at that dead body, how in the world could you have
any hope of coming out of that grave? There has to be a divine
intervention. You'll never come out of that
grave until first something takes place. But after, but after,
the kindness and love of God Let that take place. Then there
you'll see the body rise. A glorious body, likened to Jesus
Christ. A divine intervention. Aren't
you glad? Aren't you glad that He intervened
to save you? And what do you attribute it
to? Nothing but what's found in God. That's it, isn't it? I hate to end this on a negative
note, but don't you just despise that old Armenian lie that said
God looked down through time and He saw you were different
than this fellow. He saw you would do something
that this man wouldn't do. He saw you would repent and believe
and this guy wouldn't. So He chose you. He backed up
and chose you. There's no hope for me in that,
is there you? I wasn't getting better. There
was nothing in me. Lust of the flesh, lust of the
eyes, the pride of life, deceived, serving divers lust and pleasure.
In spite of us, He come and intervened and saved us. I love that salvation,
don't you? I love it. The love and mercy
of God.