Titus chapter 2. Let's begin
reading in verse 1 and read down through verse 10. Let us speak
thou the things which become sound doctrine, that the aged
men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in
patience. The aged women likewise, that
they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers. not given too much wine, teachers
of good things, that they may teach the young women to be sober,
to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet
chast keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands,
that the word of God be not blasphemed. Young men, likewise, exhort to
be sober-minded, in all things showing thyself a pattern of
good works, in doctrines showing uncorruptness, gravity, Sound
speech that cannot be condemned, that he that is of the contrary
part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you. Exhort
servants to be obedient to their own masters, and to please them
well in all things, not answering again, not prolonging, but showing
all good fidelity, that they that are of the contrary part
may be ashamed. not prolonging, but showing all
good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of our God
and Savior in all things." It is something how you read in
the Scripture sometimes and another verse just comes and jumps right
into your mind and you quote it without even realizing what
you are doing. But he says here in verse 1, sound doctrine. We have looked at some of this,
but sound as opposed to what is rotten, the Word of God is
sound, it is solid. wholesome as opposed to what's
poisonous, and healthy as opposed to what's deadly, incorruptible
as opposed to what's defiled, and pure as opposed to what's
polluted and petrified, eternally firm and settled and unshakable
as opposed to what's shifted and sinking, as the saying. The Apostle said, being born
again, not of corruptible seed, but of the incorruptible by the
Word of God, which liveth. And that's the thing about the
Word of God. It's incorruptible and it liveth. The words that
I speak unto you, they're spirit. They are spirit and they are
life. It lives forever and it abides
forever. Forever, O Lord, thy Word is
settled in heaven. Sound. Sound. That's what God's
Word is, isn't it? It's sounded every way. It's
truth. It's just the truth of God and
it's ever settled in heaven. Listen to these blessed truths
that you and I love. These things are sound. Sound
doctrine. The electing love of God to His
church. Isn't that sound? Isn't that
forever abiding? That will never sink, boy, that
will never sink. Nothing will ever corrupt that.
He has chosen you to salvation before the foundation of the
world. Sound doctrine. Redemption by
Jesus Christ, that effectual, eternal redemption that was accomplished
by Jesus Christ on the behalf of His people, that is sound,
isn't it? That is sound doctrine. Effectual,
irresistible, personal calling of God the Holy Spirit, that
sound. All that's taught of God comes unto me. That's effectual
calling. He has called you out of your
darkness, out of your ignorance, out of your blindness, out of
your hardness into His marvelous light. He called you unto the
fellowship of His Son. Aren't you so thankful for that
sound doctrine? That's incorruptible doctrine
that's ever settled in heaven. Peter said it this way on the
Pentecost. He's preaching to them and he
said, This is unto you and unto your children and to those who
are far off. And then he qualified that and
said this, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." Isn't
it necessary to be called? And it's necessary to be called
effectually, the effectual calling of God. I remember Henry telling
about Romans 8.28, the first time that Ralph Barnard ever
preached there at Pollard Baptist Church in Ashland, Kentucky.
And he said he got in the pulpit and he looked down at Henry who
was just a young preacher sitting there on the front row, assistant
pastor, and he said, young man, can you quote Romans 8.28? He
said, I think I can. He said, well, stand up and quote
it. He said, all things work together for good to them that
love God. And he sat down. And he said,
Barnard just stared at him and said, young man, can you quote
the rest of that verse? And he said he realized he had
left out a part and he got up and said, All things work together
for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according
to His purpose. And he said, he looked at him
and said, young man, if you get that last part, you'll learn
the gospel. The called according to His purpose. That's sound,
isn't it? Boy, that's sound. Sound doctrine,
the Apostle said. Regeneration by the Holy Spirit.
We will study here in a few weeks, there in chapter 3 verse 5, 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. You must be born again. That
is sound, isn't it? Sound doctrine. God hath sent
forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Father,
Father, The necessity of the work of God's Spirit in regeneration
and the fruits of it. That's sound doctrine. This is
sound too. Justification. Boy, that's a
sound doctrine when we look in the Scripture and see justification
by God's grace, by His unmerited favor, justified by His blood,
justified by faith in Jesus Christ. That's a sure foundation that
will never rot from under you. Boy, justification. The final
perseverance of every true saint of God. This is sound doctrine. He that hath begun a good work
in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Every
believer will never cease to believe, will never quit believing
until their faith ends in sight. These all died in the faith. And if He's begun this good work
in you, you'll never cease to believe until you depart this
life and to be with Christ because He begins the work and He will
perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Our Lord and Redeemer
and Savior who is reigning from heaven at this very instant is
coming again. And He's going to change these
vile, corruptible bodies and fashion them like unto His glorious
body. That's sound doctrine. And what
about the eternal state of humanity? Well, that's sound. That's sound
doctrine in God's Word. Come, ye blessed of my Father,
and depart from me, ye cursed, and everlasting fire. This is
sound, sound. What would you give today for
your hope? Would you give anything for the
hope that He's given you? Boy, you wouldn't, would you?
You wouldn't. You wouldn't. Sound doctrine. There's other
places in the Scripture where Paul uses this word sound and
other places where other writers use it. It means W-H-O-L-E. Whole. They that are whole need
not a position. That's what that word sound means.
They that were sent returning to the house found the servant
whole that had been sick." Sound. It means wholesome. This is I
Timothy 6. If any man teach otherwise and
consent not to wholesome words. Sound words. And it means healthy. Health. Beloved, I wish you above
all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health. And here's
what the wise man said about this doctrine. My son, attend
to my words, incline thine ear unto my saying, let them not
depart from your eyes, keep them in the midst of your heart, for
they are life until those that find them, and health to all
thy flesh. Sound doctrine. The doctrine,
the teaching of God's Word is sound. And that's why Peter says,
as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word that
you may grow. You want to be healthy? This
sound doctrine will make you healthy. You want to be whole?
It will make you whole. It will make you whole. And we
take these aged men here now, here in verse 2, who have grown up from spiritual
babes, and what did they grow up on? This sound doctrine. They've
tasted and they've been tasting that the Lord is gracious and
they've walked with God like Enoch of old and they've lived
by faith in the Son of God like the Apostle Paul. And what kind
of a person would you expect these aged men to be? Well, he said that they'd be
sober. That they'd be sober. When we've grown up on this wholesome
doctrine, This is the kind of people we should be when we get
old. An old Christian. That the aged
men be sober. Now, when we think of soberness,
what do we think? We think of somebody that's not
under the influence of alcohol, don't we? He's sober. And that
means that. That's the truth. But it means
more than that. It means sober-minded. It means
we're not living under the influence of this world's system and this
world's course and this world's passions. Listen to how Paul
tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5. You are all the children of light
and the children of day. We're not of the night, neither
of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep as
do others, but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep
sleep in the night, and they that be drunken are drunken in
the night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting
on the breastplate of faith and love, and for an helmet the hope
of salvation. For God hath not appointed us
to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ." So
here you have an aged believer. He's got old. He's been walking
with the Lord. He's been tasting that He's gracious.
And His salvation is nearer now than when He believed. How do
you think He feels about this world? I bet He thinks it's empty,
don't you? I bet He looks upon this world
and He says, Fade, fade, each earthly joy. Jesus is mine. And if there's anybody that should
live in the lively exercise of hope, it's the aged men. Because his salvation is much
nearer, humanly speaking, than a young man is. So don't live. He don't live under the influence
of this world and its system and its course anymore. Be not
drunk with wine, and don't be drunk with anything else, but be filled with the Spirit,
sober, sober-minded. And the next thing he says about
it is this. that the aged men be sober and grave." Grave. This word grave means serious,
dignified, behaving with reverence, sobriety of manners, solemn in
his deportment and character. It means the opposite of levity,
which is lightness of temper and conduct, a want of due consideration. vanity, gaiety of mind, want
of seriousness, a disposition to trifle. We see old men that's
trying to act like young men, and that's almost a shameful
thing, isn't it? I was talking to a pastor today,
and I told him what we were going to look at tonight, and he's
got a little older himself, and he didn't know what I was going
to say about aged men. I said, well, I've got something
to say about aged men who are acting like young men. It's shameful,
isn't it? sober and grave, serious, reverent. I know a pastor, I've known him,
I've even known him for years, and he's always a very conservative
dresser, him and his wife both. And I saw him, he pulled in my
driveway one day, and I didn't know the man. He was dressed
like a 20-year-old man. He had his hair punked up, and
I didn't know him. And I thought to myself and talked
to some others about him, I thought, what's he trying to do? Is he
trying to dress and look to impress young people? That's probably
what he's trying to do. But I tell you this much, he's
not living after the example that Paul said aged men should
live. Sober, serious, grave. And I almost got sick looking
at the poor man. I almost got sick looking at
him. Grave, grave. Serious, dignified,
reverent. A lot of that going on, isn't
there? Sound in the faith. Look at this.
Sound in the faith. Your Paul puts faith before love
and patience. It comes first. Now why is that?
Why does he put faith first? Because without faith, we can't
worship God. Faith has to do with our worship
of God. We walk by faith, don't we? We worship Him by faith. We come
to Him by faith. You know we can't come to God
without faith, can we? He that comes to God must believe
that He is. We can't call upon Him except
we call upon Him in faith. There's no works, there's no
performance of our duties that He commands us without faith.
Without faith, it's impossible to please God. Whatsoever is
not of faith is sin. So He says here, first of all,
that the aged men of all Christians should be sound, should be sound
in the faith. Aged men should be sound in the
doctrine of faith. Well, that's important, isn't
it? He done talked to us about the fables, Jewish fables and
commandments of men, and now he said, here's the way to oppose
these things and effectually defeat these things, being sound
in the faith. And who ought to be sound in
the faith? If anybody, it ought to be the aged believers, shouldn't
it? Listen to this. Sound in the doctrine of God. and the Trinity of His Person.
Sound in the knowledge of God, His eternal attributes. Sound
in the doctrine of the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ in His
two natures, both God and man. Sound in the work of Jesus Christ. What did He do when He came here? What did He accomplish? Where
is He now? What's He doing there? What's
He going to do? the person and the work of Jesus
Christ. Old men of all people should
be sound in that. You know, there's a lot of eras
that's made in theology. Some of them are damnable eras.
But the greatest era and the era that's almost often made,
more than anything else, is the era in who Jesus Christ is and
what He's done. And these old men should be sound
in their doctrine of faith. Here's another doctrine he should
be sound in, the doctrine of man, the fall of man, and the
danger that man is in, and his need, and his helplessness. We don't hear much about that
today, do we? Outside the grace realm. Sound in the doctrine
of the Holy Spirit, what the Scriptures say about the Holy
Spirit and His work in regeneration and the fruits of it. The doctrine
of scriptural justification, as we said there awhile ago.
The doctrine of the believer's walk. That's something we're
studying now, isn't it? How we ought to walk and to please
God. What kind of behavior should
a believer have towards God in this world? The doctrine of the
eternal state of men, believers and unbelievers. These are doctrines
of faith that Paul said age to men should be sound. This is
one of Paul's favorite words, sound. Sound in the faith. Sound in the grace of faith.
There's the doctrine of faith, what the Scripture says about
God and truth, and then there's the grace of faith or the exercise,
exercise of faith. That's the grace that's in our
heart. We look out of ourselves to the Lord and live by faith
upon Him. We should be sound in that faith
too. I never will forget when I was a young believer That had
been saved probably two or three months. And I've often said this,
but I reckon when the Lord saved me, I thought, boy, that's just,
you know, I'm on cloud nine. And I'm just going to ride this
cloud right on into glory. But I fell off of that cloud
or something. But I'm telling you, I got myself in a mess.
I got filled with doubt. I didn't know what was going
on. And I went to a friend of mine that we were going to church
with, and he said, let's go talk to the old deacon. And we went
over to the deacon's house, and I told him what a mess I was
in. And boy, he gave me a Scripture. And he gave me some advice that
really helped me. Here was the Scripture. Though
he slay me, yet will I trust him. And he said, Bruce, listen. You walk with the Lord, and you
put all your trust in Him, and no matter what you face in this
life, Don't let anything drive you from your absolute trust
in Him. And why never do you forget that?
Though He slay me. And I later found out when I
got acquainted with that old deacon, buddy, he got what he
got from experience. He had gone through some storms
and valleys. He had climbed some hills himself.
He lived by exercise and faith upon God. And aged men should
be that way, shouldn't they? They should have good advice
for the young men. Sound, sound in this faith. Fourthly, he says something else
about these aged men. Sound in charity. That word means
love. Sound in love. Sound in the knowledge
of God's love for His people. Sound in the love of Christ,
redeeming love for His people. We are born of love. The love
of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. And
then this love that's within a believer, it can increase. It can grow. And it should and
must. And we should grow in the knowledge
of love. And you know something else?
We should grow in the knowledge of how to love. Sometimes we
look at love as being some kind of an emotion. But my goodness,
when we look at the Lord and what He's done for us and why
He's done it, we see that love is not some kind of an emotion.
It's manifest in what's done. God so loved that He gave. Christ so loved that He gave.
And He calls us. We ought to grow in the knowledge
of it. I've got a little version that I've come up with of my
own and a mixture of other people's in 1 Corinthians 13 concerning
love. Listen to love. Here's true love.
Love suffers and endures long and is patient. Love is kind. Love never envies or boils over
with jealousy. Love is never boastful or vainglorious
and is never puffed up and haughty. Love does not behave itself unseemly
or rudely or pridefully. Love does not seek its own right. or its own way, love is never
self-seeking. It is not easily provoked. It's
not fretful or resentful. Love thinks no evil of others
or takes no account of the evils done to it. It pays no attention
to a suffered wrong. Love rejoices not in iniquity
or in injustice or unrighteousness, but always rejoices when the
truth and right prevail. Love bursts up under all things
and is ready to be the best of every person. Love hopes all
things and it never fades under any circumstances. Love endures
all things without weakening. Love never fails or becomes obsolete
or comes to an end. Love, that the aged men be sound
in love. love, the love of God shed abroad
in our hearts. One man said this, aged believers
should have overcome those jealous and wrathful and hateful passions
that they experienced in early years and their minds should
be subdued with the sweetness and gentleness of the love of
God which is shed abroad in their hearts. That's what it means
to grow up, isn't it? Desire the sincere milk of the
Word, that ye may grow, that ye may grow thereby." Grow. If you had a son, say he's 40
years old, and he was acting like he's 20, what would you
think of him? We've got some like that too now. And we know
what we think of him. You need to grow up, man. You
need to grow up. And when we see here and we read
these aged believers, what they should be, the only little hope
I can get out of this, I'm just not old enough yet. I've not
reached this place yet. That's why I need to grow. When
I get old and I'm decrepit and can't do anything else, boy,
I hope I'm sound. I want to be sound, Wayne, in
the doctrine of faith. and the grace of faith. I want
to be sound in love. I want to be sound in the Word. Sound in it. And lastly, he says
this, sound in patience. Sound in patience. Sober, grave,
temperate, sound in faith. We looked at that temperate last
week, didn't we? And what was it we said about
it? self-control. Thank you, Brother
Baker. Self-control. Self-control. But here, patience. Patience. Boy, what a vial of
grace. But patience means a cheerful
endurance. Constance. A willful waiting
on the Lord and keeping His ways. Listen to these passages of Scripture.
Rest in the Lord. and wait patiently for him, fret
not thyself because of him who prospers in the way, because
of the wicked man that bringeth devices to pass." Listen to this,
"...I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined unto me,
and heard my cry, and brought me up out of a horrible pit into
mirey clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings."
And listen to this one, "...wait on the Lord, and keep His way,
and He shall exalt thee to inherit the land. When the wicked are
cut off, thou shalt see it. We are saved by hope, but hope
that is seen is not hope. But what a man seeth, why does
he yet hope for it? If we hope for that which we
see not, then do we with patience wait for it." Patient endurance. John Calvin said this about patience. He called it an essential grace.
And boy, it is. And here's what he said about
it. Without patience, he said, without patience, faith would
not long endure. And the many occurrences that
are taking place every day, instances of unhandsome conduct or evil
temper, which irritate us so much that we should not only
be weak and drooping, but almost dead to the duties of love towards
our fellow man and one another, if this same patience did not
support us." How could faith and love endear if it wasn't for patience? It
couldn't, could it? It couldn't. Patience isn't an
essential grace. Albert Barnes said this in closing.
Here's what he said about patience. In the infirmities of old age,
in the trials resulting from the loss of the friends of their
early years, in their loneliness in the world, they should show
that the effect of all God's dealings with them has produced
patience. The age should submit to the
trials of their advanced years also with resignation, for they
will soon be over. A few more sighs, and they will
sigh no more. A little longer burn up under
their infirmities, and they will renew their youth before the
throne of God." The age of all people. should have learned patience
more than anybody else should have. Aged men, sober, brave,
temperate, sound in faith, in charity, and in patience. That is what I want to be, brothers
and sisters, when I am old, when I am aged. I want this to be
said of me. I know sometimes when we get
old and it is so sad, we often think of our dear sister, how
the mind goes. I hope that don't happen to me.
I'd love to live like Brother Henry Mahan, to be old and to
be an example of this verse right here. It don't always happen,
does it? God help us. God give us grace.
Next time we'll look at the age of women. I imagine what's said
about the men should be said about the women as well. But
next time we'll look at verse 3. the aged women likewise, that
they be in behavior that's becoming old in us. Clarence, would you
dismiss us?