Adorning the Doctrine

Now let's turn back to the scripture
which Brother Huddle read a moment ago in Titus chapter 2, Titus
2. I want to read verse 10 for my
text. Titus 2.10, not purlorning, which
is stealing, but showing all good fidelity that they may adorn
the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. Now, in thirty years of preaching
the gospel, I have met many people preached in many churches across
this land. I find some people who are in
love with doctrine. There's nothing that they'd rather
do than hear a good, sound, doctrinal sermon or discuss theology. And they have my fellowship,
because I love good, sound doctrinal sermons also. They love the old
writers. They love the good books. They
love fellowship around what they call the truth. And they have much on their side,
because our Lord said, God is a spirit, and they that worship
him, worship him in spirit and in truth. And I love these people
because you don't upset them with strong sermons. It doesn't
matter how strong the sermon may be. Preach on the covenant.
They rejoice. Preach on eternal election. They
praise God. Preach on total depravity. They
agree with it. Preach on particular addiction.
They love it. Preach on reprobation. They'll
accept it. Or any related doctrine. They're
tough. They can take anything you hand
out if it's the truth. And many times they're sticklers
for right order, right practice, right method, right doctrine.
And unfortunately, many times they're usually critical of anyone
who does not have these characteristics, right order, right doctrine,
right method, and right practice. And I've met other people in
the ministry who turn their backs and run away from any kind of
strong preaching, they can't take it. They run away from any
preaching which smacks of doctrine. I hear them say, I don't want
to hear doctrine. I want to hear about Jesus. Well,
I confess I don't know how this can be done. I don't know how
you can preach Christ without his commandments. I don't know
how that's possible. I don't know how you can present
the great teacher without his teachings, or the high priest
without his atonement, do you? Or the lawgiver without his law,
or the tabernacle without its furnishings, or the ark without
God's blueprints, or justification without the justifier. How do
you do that? How do you present the Redeemer without the redemption?
How do you preach sanctification without the sanctifier? No, Christ
without his doctrines would be no message at all. Paul tells
us here in the Scripture, Jack read verse 1, chapter 2, he says,
Speak thou the things which become sound doctrine. And he said in
verse 7, In all things showing thyself a pattern of good works
in doctrine showing uncorruptedness, gravity, sincerity. I confess
this to you. If I had to choose between the
two, if I had to choose between the preaching of good, sound,
solid, scriptural doctrine without the preaching of practical holiness,
Or if I had to choose between the preaching of practical holiness
without the doctrine, I'd have to take the latter. Because the
foundation is more important than the building. Our Lord said
that. Said two men built their house,
one built on a rock, and it stood. One built on the sand, regardless
of the structure, regardless of the beauty of it, regardless
of the immaculate cleanliness of it, it fell. The truth of
God's grace in Christ is essential to life. Practical holiness is
needful, it is necessary, but the doctrine of Christ is essential. A man who is built on the foundation,
Christ Jesus, will be motivated in all that he does by that foundation. He'll seek to please Christ.
But a man who does not have the foundation, a man who is not
vitally united with Christ, a man who is out of Christ can never
please God no matter what he does. For in the flesh, no man
can please God. But there's no reason for me
to choose between the two. I don't have to. I don't have
to take either position. I don't have to take the preaching
of doctrine without the preaching of practical holiness. I said
if I had to. Nor do I have to take the preaching
of practical holiness without the doctrine. There's no reason,
because the word of God's clear on both. Take the Apostle Paul,
for example. Turn to the book of Ephesians.
In the book of Ephesians, chapter 1, Paul is a master theologian. He's a master of doctrine. And
in the book of Ephesians, he sounds the note loud and clear
of our eternal covenant of grace God's elective mercy, Christ's
particular redemption. He sounds the note loud and clear.
In Ephesians 1, verse 3, he says, Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath
chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him. in love having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according
to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of
his grace wherein he made us accepted in the Beloved. Paul
does not flinch, he does not draw back, he gives us a whole
system of theology in miniature in this first chapter of Ephesians.
He doesn't shrink from the profoundest doctrine, from what you call
high or low doctrine. He deals with election by name. He deals with divine purpose
by name. He deals with justification.
He deals with perseverance. Yet in the closing verses of
this book, he exhorts the people of God to put away lying and
speak the truth. He exhorts the people of God
to work with your hands that you may have somewhat to share
with those who do not have. He exhorts the people of God
to put away wrath and bitterness and evil speaking. He says, Be
ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another. He says,
Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands. He says, Husbands,
love your wives. He says, Children, obey your
parents. He says, Pray for one another.
There's no reason to have to choose between doctrine without
practical holiness or practical holiness without doctrine. In Titus chapter 2, in my text
tonight, I think Paul gives us the sum of the whole matter.
The sum of the whole matter. He starts out this second chapter
with exhorting Titus to speak those things which become sound
doctrine. Build on the right foundation,
Christ Jesus. Get people straight in their
heads, straight in their thinking. Get the right foundation. And
then he comes down to verse 10, and he gives us the sum of the
whole matter, that you may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. The word adorn means make attractive,
decorate. Now, there are two things tonight
that I want us to look at with the strongest attention. I want
us to look at the name which our gospel bears, the doctrine
of God our Savior. That's the name. And then I want
us to look, secondly, at the dress it ought to wear. Now, what is our gospel called?
What name does it bear? It says, the doctrine of God
our Savior. It is called that because he's
the author of it. We hear men say, well, what do
Baptists believe? What do Catholics believe? What
do the Reformed believe? What does it matter? What does
it matter? What really matters, the important
thing, is what does God say? I had a dear lady call me just
30 minutes ago on the telephone, who lives in Paintsville, Kentucky.
She listened to our television program this morning. She called
to order four tapes, four copies of the message, to distribute
to her friends. In the course of the conversation,
she said, Brother Mann, I'm not a Baptist. I really wish people
could forget those names. I wish we could quit apologizing
for not being a Baptist or a Methodist or a Presbyterian or a Catholic.
What difference does it make what the name says? Most of them
have departed from the gospel anyway. I'm interested in what
God says, aren't you? Turn to Galatians chapter 1.
Listen to Galatians 1. Paul is saying this. Now, I'm
thankful for my Baptist forefathers. Don't misunderstand me. I'm thankful
for the old Philadelphia Confession, the old London Confession. I'm
even thankful for the New Hampshire Watered Down Confession. That's
all right too. But we're in a day when we need
to go back and see what God said. Not what our forefathers said,
what God said. Paul said in Galatians 1 verse
10, Do I persuade men or God? Do I seek to please men? For
if I yet pleased men, I would not be the servant of Christ,
but I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached
of me is not after man. I didn't receive it of man, I
wasn't taught it by man, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ."
This is God's gospel. It's called the doctrine of God
our Savior because He's the author of it. In that book of Galatians, Paul
warns them that people will come preaching another gospel. Turn
to Romans, chapter 1. Listen to Paul here. Romans,
the first chapter. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ,
called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God, which he
promised before by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. It's
the same gospel. We preach no new gospel. That's
the reason I wonder if this church I'm preaching in next to is called
a New Testament Baptist Church. I just wouldn't have that name
on the front of this building, New Testament. That seems to
insinuate you don't believe in the Old Testament. The gospel
which we preach is not a New Testament gospel, it's God's
gospel. It's the gospel of the book of
Revelation, it's the gospel of the book of Matthew, it's the
gospel of the book of Malachi, it's the gospel of the book of
Genesis. That's what he says here, I'm separated to the gospel
of God which he promised before by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. That's not talking about the
New Testament, that's the Old Testament. What is it? Verse 3, it's concerning
his son, Jesus Christ our Lord. It's God's gospel. Well, I can
take the Old Testament and preach just as much gospel as you can
with the New Testament. Not without the New Testament,
because the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed,
and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. But we
don't have two Bibles, we've got one Bible, made up of Old
Testament and New Testament, those who look to the cross and
those who look back to the cross. It's the gospel of God our Savior
because he's the author of it. he's the author of it. And then
secondly, it's called the gospel of God our Savior because he's
the substance of it. You can take this whole Bible,
you can take the whole truth of this entire book, you can
take every bit of it from Genesis to Revelation and compress it
until you get the very essence of it, and it'll come down to
one Jesus Christ. Moses wrote of
me. That's what our Lord said. They
said, those Jews said, well, we have Moses. He said, if you'd
have believed Moses, you'd have believed me. Moses wrote of me.
Take all the writings of Moses and all the descriptions of the
tabernacle and the priesthood and the types and the sacrifices
and compress them down into one word, it'll come out Jesus Christ.
Abraham saw my day, Christ said, and he was glad. Take all the
writings of Solomon, of David, of Isaiah, of the minor, the
major prophets, and compress them down to one essence, and
they'll come out Jesus Christ. He's the substance of the gospel.
He's the essence of the gospel. He's the life of the gospel.
He's the heart of the gospel. It's the doctrine of God our
Saviour. Look at it. God, His person.
His person. He's God. He's the Godman. God
was in Christ. He thought it not robbery to
be equal with God. In the beginning was the Word,
the Word was with God, and the Word was God. God. That's His
person. Look at the next one. Our Saviour. That's His work. That's His work. Our Redeemer. He redeemed us
by his obedience, he redeemed us by his death, he redeems us
by his intercession, he will redeem our bodies by his coming.
God, his person, Savior, his work. Doctrine, that's his office. Prophet, priest, and king. My
friends, beware of any preaching that does not exalt God our Savior. Beware of any preaching That
does not give him all the glory. Someone said, if any teaching
puts Christ in a corner, you run as far as you can away from
that corner. It's the doctrine of God our
Savior that we wish to adorn because he's the author of it,
he's the substance of it, and then thirdly, he is the object
of it. The doctrine of God our Savior
always points to Christ. Turn to Acts 13, verse 48. Here's a verse of Scripture that
ought to be underlined in your Bible, Acts 13, verse 48. It's
the key to the Old Testament. It's the key to all the writings
of the Word of God, Acts 13, verse 48. I beg your pardon,
that's not it. Acts 10, I believe it is. verse 43, Acts 10.43, look at
this right here, this ought to be underlined, Acts 10.43. To him give all the prophets
witness, that through his name, whosoever believeth in him should
receive remission of sins. He is the object of all of the
writings, of all of the prophecies, of all of the preaching, If the
doctrine that is preached does not lead you to look to Christ
for righteousness, wisdom, sanctification, and redemption, it's not the
doctrine of God our Savior. The teaching which leads you
to look to the Church, or look to the law, or look to the priest,
or look to the denomination, or look to the preacher, whatever
good there may be about it, it's not the doctrine of God our Savior. The doctrine of God our Savior
has as its object of faith Jesus Christ our Lord. John the Baptist
summed it up when he said, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sin of the world. Now secondly, what is it to adorn
the doctrine of God our Savior? That's our doctrine. That's our
doctrine. showing all good fidelity that
you may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior." He's the author
of it. He's the substance of it. He's the object of it. Well,
what is it to adorn that doctrine? When we use the word adorn, we
mean to make attractive, to decorate. Well, how can I, how can you
adorn this glorious doctrine, this doctrine of eternal grace,
this doctrine of eternal mercy, this doctrine of substitution,
this doctrine of satisfaction, this doctrine of Christ crucified,
buried, risen, interceding, coming again, this doctrine, this foundation
on which we stand, this doctrine of grace and grace alone? How
do I adorn it? Well, first of all, I can't adorn
it I can't make it attractive with buildings and architecture,
steeples and stained-glass windows. It looks like this is what the
Church today is trying to do. It's trying to make its message
attractive by building fine, beautiful places for people to
worship. This is not the way to adorn
the doctrine. Turn to the book of Acts, chapter
7. I don't suppose any building was ever more beautiful than
Solomon's temple. I don't suppose that any building
was more gorgeous, magnificent, or the splendor of it. But from the time Solomon built
it, religion decline was corrupted and decayed. And because they
had that mammoth, beautiful, gold, silver, precious stone,
gorgeous building, did not mean that they had any gospel. And
listen to what Stephen said about it. Solomon built him a house,
Acts 7, verse 47. Howbeit the most high dwelleth
not in temples made with hands, saith the prophet. Heaven is
my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What house will you
build me, saith the Lord? Where is the place of my rest?
If not my hand made all these things." You want to see the
beauty of God, don't look at these big beautiful church buildings.
Go look at the heavens. They declare the glory of God.
Go look at some morning as a beautiful rosebud is opening up with the
dew kissing its cheeks. That's the glory of God. Go out sometime and stand by
the seashore, the great and magnificent sea which God has contained as
with the swaddling band, and says, hitherto shall you come
and no further. Go as I will be going next week
up into the high mountains of West Virginia and see those waterfalls
and the trees and the beautiful fall flowers. There's the glory
of God. We can't adorn our message by
building a pretty building and air-conditioning it and softening
the seats and telling people, come, here's where God dwells.
I passed a church the other day, had a sign out on the front,
Christ is here, come in and meet him. That's not the way you adorn
the doctrine. I'll tell you something else. You don't adorn the gospel
by your mode of speech. You can learn to say thee and
thou and ye and thine and perish in ungodliness. You don't adorn the doctrine
by the clothes you wear. You can wear a black, broad-brimmed
hat and still be a hypocrite. That's not the way you adorn
the doctrine. You don't adorn it with your
buildings and your architecture and your steeples and your stained
glass windows. You don't adorn it with your
ceremonial services. Dress your choir in robes and
let them sing cantatas and carry candles and all of these mysterious
looking things. That doesn't adorn the doctrine.
That doesn't make it attractive. Learn to say thee and thou and
perish. wear the black clothes and black
hats and perish. You don't adorn the doctrines
by fine music and beautiful sermons. Well, how do you adorn the doctrine? Are you listening? I'll tell you. Now give me the doctrine. I want
it. I want a foundation. We're going to build a building
back here in a few weeks, and Ed, we want a good foundation.
We want a good solid, deep foundation. One that will hold, one that's
secure. Give me the doctrine. Tell me how man got lost. Tell
me how God saves sinners. Tell me the truth about it. Tell
me what God did back under the Council Halls of Eternity. Tell
me what Christ did on this earth. Don't spare me. Don't you shun
to declare unto me the whole Council of God. But while you're
preaching it to me, adorn it. Make it beautiful. Make me walk to hear it. How
do you do that? First of all, you adorn the gospel
with love. There are no sweeter words in this
world than, I love you. Are there? There is no better proof of discipleship
than love. That's what Christ said, By this
shall all men know you are my disciples, if you love one another.
There is no greater balm for trouble than love. There's nothing in the world
that will dispel argument and debate like love. There's no
basis on which people can disagree more amiable and acceptable than
if they really love each other. That's the first way to adorn
this doctrine. John says, don't tell me you
love God if you don't love me. I won't listen to you, he says. He that loveth not knoweth not
God. John said, I don't want to hear you preach. I don't want
to hear you witness. I don't want to hear you testify,
if you can't adorn your doctrine with love. Secondly, turn to Ephesians 4.
You can adorn this doctrine, And I hear people tell me, well,
my brother just won't go to church. Well, I don't blame him sometimes.
If I had to go and listen to some of the people that are preaching,
if I had to associate with some of the conniving, crooked, dishonest
people that call themselves Christian, I don't think I'd go either. A Christian is not unkind. You
look at Ephesians 4, verse 32, and be ye kind one to another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another. You adorn
the doctrine by loving, you adorn the doctrine by being kind. I
want God to accept me as I am. He has to, just as I am, without
one plea. but that thy blood was shed for
me just as I am, and waiting not to rid my soul of one dark
body. O Lamb of God, I come to thee.
I want God to accept me as I am. Why won't you accept one another
as you are? If you expect God to accept you
as you are, you ought to be kind and tender and gracious and accept
them as they are. It's inconsistent for me to preach
the grace of God to you and not be gracious. It's inconsistent
for me to talk about God's mercy to me if I can't show mercy to
you. It's inconsistent for me to say
God has forgiven me and did not forgive you. That's the way you adorn the
doctrine. You don't adorn the doctrine
with your buildings and with your manner of speech and with
your manner of dress. You adorn the doctrine with your
attitude. You adorn the doctrine with integrity. Integrity. I sat down in a dentist's
office one time, one Dr. Mohr, another dentist, years
ago. He was cleaning my teeth. And he asked me, he said, Do
you know a certain person? I said, Yes, sir. He said, Isn't
he pretty high up in religious circles? I said, Yes, sir. Isn't
he a preacher? I said, Yes, sir. how do you
get him to pay his bills? I said, what do you mean? Well,
he said, I kept sending him bills and finally I just quit sending
them. I figured he didn't pay anybody. Is that adorning the
gospel? You adorn the gospel with happiness,
with a cheerful countenance. I like that story about the little
boy that He lived with these folks, you know, his parents
and his grandparents and everybody were big church workers. On Sunday
he had to walk around with his clean white breeches on, white
shirt, and everybody sat around with a long face and a mournful
countenance and a solemn expression. One Sunday afternoon he walked
around the yard a while and couldn't find anything to do. All the
old folks sitting on the porch watching flies and talking, you
know, and he went out to the barn, and there was the old mule.
He had his face hanging out over the window there, you know, had
that old long face, those long ears, you know, and that long
face. And the little boy stood there and looked at the mule
a while, and finally he said, Well, I don't know what denomination
you are, but I bet you're Christian too. I don't know about this, but
I think it's right. You check on it. There's a scripture
in Timothy that talks about the glorious gospel of the blessed
God, and that word blessed is happy. Happy, the glorious gospel
of the happy God. Happy is the man to whom God
will not charge sin. Blessed, happy, under the benediction
and blessings of God. You can adorn the gospel with
happiness. You can adorn the gospel with
integrity. You can adorn the gospel with
generosity. What does the scripture say?
What does our Lord say? It's more blessed to give than
to receive. Sinners were attracted to Christ,
and it wasn't just because of what he said. It was because
of what he was. He was the friend of sinners.
You can adorn the gospel in patience under trial. You know, I learned
this some time ago, and I try to say it to people when they
go through trouble. I try to say to them, witness
a good confession. People are going to be watching
you. If someone in your family gets sick or you get sick, witness
a good confession. If someone in your family dies,
if a mother, a father, a child, a husband, a wife, witness a
good confession. It gives you an opportunity to
let people know where you stand and what you believe. Now here's
a man that tells me he believes in God's sovereignty. He believes
all things work together for good to them that love God. And
then everything in the world keeps him tore up. Now if that
keeps on after a while, I'm going to say, well, I just don't know
whether he believes that or not. Maybe he just wants me to believe
that he believed it. If he believed that all things
work together for his good, he would be content with those things.
He would accept them as an act of his Father. He would accept
them as coming from the hand of God. He would learn patience
under the ordinary affairs of life. I'm not telling you something
that I don't need to do. I want to do what Paul said when
he said, I have learned in whatsoever state I am to be content. When
Paul wrote, Be content with such things as you have, and avoid
covetousness. But if you walk with me each
day, you hear me preach. stand up one Sunday and preach,
and then tomorrow I have an automobile accident and I'm all torn up,
I'm all upset, I'm all impatient and angry, and you say, well,
yesterday he was preaching about God's sovereignty and today he
acts like God's abdicated and left him alone. That's what this
means. Look back at the text. Titus
chapter 2, patience under trial, and this whole life is a trial.
God's promised us that we're even going to eat our bread through
the sweat of our brows. He's promised us that we're going
to get old, we're going to get sick, we're going to die. He's
promised us that those that believe in Christ Jesus shall suffer
persecution. Nowhere does he promise us an
easy trail, an easy pathway, but we need to quit thinking
about ourselves and go to thinking about his glory in other people. Patience under trial, patience. You can adorn the gospel by making
your home a place of happiness. Now, I'll tell you this, and
I'm serious about this. It doesn't look like we believe
what this scripture teaches about the grace of God and the mercy
of God and the love of God. peace of God and the joy of God,
if we have to confine it to this building right here. If my home
is not a place of hospitality and happiness, and I'm the cause
of it, it's a good indication that this has never reached my
heart, but it's just reached my head. If my home is a place
of contention all the time and argument, unkind words, unkind
statements, unkind actions, if people cannot come into my home
and feel a happiness and a happy union between the members of
the family there, then does Christ really dwell there? We're commanded here, look at
it, we're commanded to adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. And brethren, I'll tell you this,
I love this doctrine. I just love it. Somebody can
stand up here and take a text and preach on God's absolute,
immutable, infallible, unchangeable sovereignty, and I love it! And
we can talk about his second coming and all of the advents
and events surrounding his coming, and I love it, don't you? We
can talk about right order and right methods and right practice
and right doctrine and right teachings, and I love it. But
I'm never going to convince you that I believe it until I start
acting like this. Isn't that right? I'm never going to convince anybody
else I believe it. And we're not going to adorn
the doctrine by making this place bigger and prettier. We're not
going to adorn the doctrine by using the right phrase and learning
to say shibboleth, crossing our t's and dotting our i's. We're
going to learn it when we're able to return a soft answer
for a hard word. Until we're able to say, well,
I love you and I mean it. Do we ever be tender and kind
and merciful and gracious in our attitude? Do we quit thinking
about ourselves and why this is going to affect me and what
it's going to do for me and start thinking about how it's going
to affect somebody else and what it'll do for them? Christ gave
himself. He said I didn't come to be ministered
unto but to minister and give my life a ransom for me. And
you want to be high in the kingdom of God, you be the servant. you
be the servant, adorning the doctrine. Our Father in Heaven,
help me, help each one of us, we need help. We know this doctrine, we've
learned it in our heads. May we by thy grace learn it
in our May we be the peculiar people that Christ purchased,
a holy nation, a royal priesthood. People show him forth the praises
of him who loved us and gave himself for us. Give us the right
attitude. Touch our hearts and break them. Give us hands that reach out
and hearts that reach out unto others. And grant that others might see
us and listen to us and know that we've been with the Savior.
We pray it in his name and for his glory. Amen.

Adorning the Doctrine

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