Titus 1:3

Titus chapter 1, verse 1 to 3 for our text this evening. Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness, in hope of eternal life which God that cannot lie, promised before the world began, that hath in due times manifested his first, word through preaching, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God and your Savior. May God bless to us His sacred and holy word this evening. Years ago, there was a sailor that returned back from a whaling voyage, and he was taken by his friend to hear a famous religious speaker. After he had listened to the speech, his friend asked him how he liked it. And the sailor said that, well, it was ship-shaped. The mast were high enough. The sailing and rigging were all right, but it didn’t have any harpoons. And his friend said to him, what do you mean? It didn’t have any harpoons. He said, well, whales don’t come because you have a nice, fine ship. He says, you have to go after them with harpoons. God has spoken about the faith. of God’s elect and how God promised eternal life before the foundation of the world. However, how is it that God’s elect are brought to salvation in the first place? It’s not because there are a nice, fine church buildings with exquisite interiors. Like the sailor said, the whales don’t come because you have a fine ship. You have to go after them with harpoons. Well, God’s harpoon here is the priest. of the word of God. It is the truth by which men are brought to know the Lord. This is how he manifest his word to sinners and brings them to salvation. Paul is going to speak of his own personal calling to the ministry. He is an apostle. He is a set one, as he told us in chapter 1, verse 1. But before he does that, he speaks about preaching in general. the first part here of verse 3. And we want to speak tonight on the manifestation of God’s word. Let me begin by saying this. You should realize God brings everything to pass in his own time. You’ll notice he says here in verse 3, but hath in due times manifested his word. Now, you need to understand the meaning here of due times. These words in the Greek refer to a fixed or definite period of time, a season, an appointed season, if you would. In other words, the very time which the Lord and his ultimate purpose appointed, appointed, and his wisdom, for this to take place. What time he has placed on his divine calendar for this event to occur. The Lord brings to pass all his promises and all his purposes in their due season. The events occurring in this life unfold at a time fixed by God. As the writer of Ecclesiastes tells us, to everything there is a season in the time. for every purpose under heaven. Whatever happens in this world, whether it be great or whether it be small, has a due time set by God for its accomplishment. Jonas Gord was given one day. Israel’s captivity or bondage, I should say, in Egypt 400 years. God does not contend himself. merely to create and let things go on in this world in a willy-nilly fashion. Things don’t occur randomly. They don’t occur by chance. God determines all circumstances as to place, as to time, as to manner as he pleases. You see this in the life of Christ very clearly, for we read in Galatians 4-4, when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son made of a woman made under the law. In due time, Christ died for the ungodly, Romans 5, 6. That in the dispensation of the fullness of times, God might gather together in one all things in Christ, Ephesians 110. This is why God did not manifest his word any sooner, but a lot of 4,000 years to pass in obscurity for many people because it pleased him to do so. It was his purpose to wait. There is a time in which the Gentiles are allowed to walk in their own ways, and to walk in darkness before God has decided to call them to salvation as Acts 17 and verse 30. indicates to us. So you can understand the meaning of due times. Now you need to realize there is no such thing then as fortune or chance. Every time the Bible speaks about a time or a time or a season for something indicates to us these things are not happening by random chance. This is a heathen concept that things happen by chance. It’s not a biblical one. If the Lord is determined, everything that comes to pass, there is no such thing as luck. Nothing can happen randomly outside of God’s inclusive eternal purpose. We might call this God’s sacred flow chart for everything in this life. Flowchart has the events in sequence of what’s going to happen. This, this, this, this, and that God has all laid out, and that’s exactly how it’s going to happen. Non-regenerate people who live in our society, they think they are enlightened, but they’re very superstitious. They have to have their horseshoes and their toad skulls and their piglets and their ladybirds and their four-leaf clovers and their, you know, two shooting stars occur in one night. We’re told that these are lucky signs. And there’s a good omen. Hunchbacks in the number 13, losing your wedding ring, spilling salt, the ace of spades, breaking a mirror, all said to be unlucky. These are a bad omen. People escape a deadly accident and then reclaimed, boy, it was just by chance I missed being in that accident. I thank my lucky stars that I wasn’t there at that time. What people call chance or fate, Scripture calls the providence of God. God has determined and controlled the event. For example, let’s take a man that’s cutting a tree in the forest, and the head of his axe flies off the handle and hits his neighbor and kills him. Now, from a human perspective, we call that an accident. Some would speak of that as a chance event, random event. Some would say it is bad luck. However, the Bible speaks of such an event as being the outcome of God’s purpose. It’s an interesting statement. statement in Exodus 2113. He that smiteth a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death. Here we have the idea of a premeditated murder or direct attack upon a man. And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand, then I will appoint the a place whether he shall flee. If it just so happens by accident, so to speak, humanly speaking. what he calls God delivering this person into the hand of the individual. It’s God’s doing. It’s his providence that is governing this event. We need to think biblically as we go through this life and not fall into the world’s thinking. When I first had kidney failure but I didn’t know it, I was blacking out. I was at home and I thought maybe I had the flu or something. And I was, whenever I got up or I was getting lightheaded and actually I could feel myself blacking out. I could even walk up the steps without leaning against the wall to get up the steps. And so I went to my doctor, Dr. Iosie, and he gave me all these tests. The next thing he knows he rushes me to the hospital with kidney failure. And he told me, he said, you know, your cread levels were near 30. He said, most people usually go into a blackout, go into a coma and never come around and die when that occurs. He said, you’re lucky to be alive. And I said, no, I’m probably, I am providentially blessed. And that’s why I’m alive. You know, and we, you know, this is because this is the way the world thinks. Oh, man, it was a close thing. It was pure luck that you didn’t die. No, I wasn’t going to die until God determined I was going to die. and it must not have been my time to die, because it must not have been due time yet for that to occur. And so when we go through this life, we need to think more along these lines and not be thinking like the world thinks. Now, you should learn to patiently wait upon the Lord. Now, you and I are usually impatient, but the Bible talks about waiting on the Lord. Because there is a due time for everything, that means sometimes we have to wait until God, due time for something to come to pass. If God’s time is the proper and fittest time for things to be done or completed, we can’t force the issue. We can’t make it happen before that time. We have to adjust our schedule according to what God is doing. James Garfield, who later became President of United States, was once the principal of Hiram University or college in Ohio. And one day a father asked him if Garfield’s teaching course could be shortened so that his son could get done quicker and finish up in a shorter period of time. Certainly Garfield said, but it all depends on what you want your son to be, he said. When God makes an oak, he takes 100 years. When he makes a squash, you only takes two months. So what do you want, you know, want your son to be? Moses attempted to deliver Israel from Egyptian bondage before the time. And remember, he utterly failed. They rejected him. And he spends 40 years on the backside of the desert. And then God sends him through the burning bush episode to Israel. 400 years had to go by before the Israelites could be delivered. Not 40 years before that. Not 360. It had to wait God’s time. on that. Paul wished to see the Christians at Rome, but it was repeatedly hindered to do so because it wasn’t God’s time. But when he got arrested at Jerusalem, and when he had to appeal to Caesar, that was the time. He was going to end up going to Rome and speaking to the Christians there, which he wanted to do. David wanted to build the temple for God and which for him to dwell and for the worship of the people of God. But it wasn’t God’s time. Solomon and his son was the one that was chosen to do that. Now, when we look at these kind of things, we realize that when we’re dealing with family members, relatives, coworkers, people that we witness to, there is God’s time when he will bring those people to salvation. In due time, if these are the ones that God is going to save, it’s his timetable when he does these things. God times things according to his wisdom. It’s interesting, the Bible said that God will wait, the Lord will wait, that he may be gracious unto you. Blessed all they wait upon him in Isaiah 3018. You know, we live in times when we see many times the wicked doing all kinds of evil things, and you wonder, why does God ever going to judge these people? Why do they continue to get away with it? Remember what Asaph. said in Psalm 73 as he looked upon the wicked and all that they had and seemed like they were prospering. He’s struggling and he goes into the house of God as we sang this evening from Psalm 73B and he hears the end of the wicked. And I’m reminded of what we read in Deuteronomy 3235. God says to me belongeth vengeance and recompense. Their foot shall slide in due time. In God’s time, it will occur. So we have to realize that. You should realize God brings everything to pass in his own time. Secondly, tonight, you have clearer revelation of the word of salvation than in former ages. But God hath in due times manifested His Word, we read here. Now, what does it mean that He manifested His Word? but the word, I think he’s speaking here in particular of the doctrine of the gospel, the word of salvation through Jesus Christ, the truth that he’s mentioned earlier in these verses. Verse 2, it’s the word of God’s promise of eternal life. He promised a redeemer. He promised salvation through that redeemer. And so we find that the word here is God’s inspired, infallible, sacred scripture that we have before us that he speaks through. By manifested, it means to make most clear something, as if a great light would be shown on it. The word of promise has been greatly illuminated, like a beacon from a lighthouse shining out on the sea onto a ship, and lighting that ship up. That’s what we have this idea with regard to the gospel. Before the coming of Christ, there certainly was an appearance of His Word, but not a manifestation of it. Some light, but yet obscured by types and shadows and sometimes dark visions. We know from the very beginning that Adam and Eve were his promised a seed that would bruise the head of the serpent. That was a glimmering light. in Genesis 315. Abraham was promised that through his seed, all the nations of the earth would be blessed, and now we have a little bit more light. Israel had the word of promise in the symbols of the tabernacle and temple and the blood atonement and the high priesthood and the sacrificial substitutionary death and so forth. The Psalms and the prophets revealed a little more and more about Christ and his work and the word of promise. You can’t help but read Psalm 18 or 45, or like we sang from Psalm 22, all about Christ and his crucifixion and his work. Isaiah spoke of the suffering servant of Jehovah and the transgressions of his people being born by the Savior. Daniel spoke of the exact time of the Messiah’s coming and when he would be cut off in the 70 weeks’ prophecy. David and the Psalms revealed much about the person, and work of Christ as we’ve talked about. But all this is like the dawning of the day. All this is like just the beginning of the sunrise. As the sun goes up in the sky, the first light of day compared now to the brightness of the noonday sun when the New Testament has come to us. And the New Testament revelation has been given. For Jesus Christ himself, the final, The final prophet of God has come and spoken to us and given us the divinely promised salvation. And he has now sent out his disciples to the Gentiles, to all the world, to preach the gospel. And so that the light of the gospel was manifested now more than any other time. So out of this great darkness shines the light of the gospel like never before. So this is the meaning here, the manifest. his word phrase. Now you live then in a time of great advantage. Salvation in Christ is more clearly revealed today than it was back in the days of Abraham and even David. Today the mysteries concerning Jesus Christ have been unfolded for us. The Word of God is complete. You’ve got four Gospels telling you about. the work of Christ in detail. Kings and princes, which had the greatest means of obtaining knowledge in the Old Testament times, desired to see the things which you and I now see, as Jesus said, but did not. The prophets themselves diligently searched to know what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them was speaking about. And now we’re living. in that time of which the Spirit was speaking. So it’s been given unto us to know the full understanding of the truth of the Word of the gospel of Christ. Here you are. You’re living in a land where you can have access to a Bible 24-7. You can have your own personal copy of the Bible. You can read any time you desire. You know the Bible. You know the story of Christ coming in his death and burial, resurrection, ascension. The gospel counts. You can read them for yourself. You have cell phones. You can access the Bible wherever you are. And just, you know, access an app which has the scripture on. Now, that’s a great advantage to have the access to the word of God like this. But to whom much is given, much is required. And so the more that we have access to the Word of God, and the more society does, the more accountable that society is to respond to that gospel message. Many years ago, there were two young men who were arrested for robbing a service station. One of the men was from a very wealthy family. The other was a rather poor gentleman. So when the trial came up, this young man from the wealthy family had four or five very high-powered attorneys that could defend him. The poorer robber was given three years in prison for robbing the service station, but the one from the wealthy family was sentenced by the same judge to ten years in prison. When his lawyers howled about it and said, why is this? He said that this boy is a graduate of Kuwait preparatory school in Yale University. His father is an outstanding man in the community. this boy has had all the advantages and all the opportunities to make something good out of his life and he’s failed to do it. He deserves a greater punishment. Friends, the more knowledge you have of the gospel, the more answerable you are are to God. This society is answerable to God in a great way. The minute that God gives you in any advantage whatsoever regarding the word of truth, you are more accountable than to him. Unbelief today is far more sinful in this day and age than before the coming of the Savior. There are people who have seen, have not believed. There are people who could access a Bible, don’t bother doing so. You’re not stumbling around in the dark. You’re not someone who is in some heathen land where you never heard of the Bible or never heard about Jesus Christ. Didn’t know anything about these things. The Bible says, for if the word spoken by angels was steadfast in every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great as salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord? We have a greater knowledge of the things of God. This is why people cannot treat the word of God with indifference and think that somehow or other that doesn’t matter. It does matter. And we see that the manifestation has been great. And then therefore the punishment in hell will be greater for those who reject the message of the truth where they have such access to it today. So we have a clearer revelation of the Word of Salvation and in the former ages. This great manifestation of the truth has taken place in due time according to God’s purpose. Thirdly tonight, you should seek for the revelation of salvation in the preaching of the word. He manifested his word through preaching, the Bible says. The preaching of the word of promise is the means that God has ordained for the calling of men and women and children to salvation in Christ. This is the way Christ is made known. Thus it is called the Word of Reconciliation and the Gospel of Salvation in Scripture. This is the message we are to proclaim. We first have to speak about the bad news. And we have to tell people that they are sinners and they have violated the law of God. That they are alienated from God because of their depraved state and fall in Adam. That hell awaits them. That there is a day of judgment that is coming. Now that’s all the bad news. But there is good news in the gospel, and that is that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. That Jesus Christ lived a perfect life and fulfilled the law of God down to every single jot and tittle. Perfect life. Died a substitutionary death upon the cross. Rows from the gray. Reigns on high. And the command of God is that all men everywhere repent of their sin trust in Christ’s blood and righteousness for the salvation of their soul. In a nutshell, that is the message that we are to preach and proclaim to others through this message of which I’m really giving just the skin into bones, if you would, that God calls people by his sovereign grace to salvation. Thus, anyone who desires to be say should take pains to be under the preaching of the word of God. This is the means that God uses. So you’ve revealed the purpose of preaching. The second thing I suggest to you tonight is this you should be thankful for sound preaching. When God deprives people of the gospel, he calls it a famine of the word. A famine is something that brings death because people have nothing to eat. Spiritually, a famine is something that brings death eternally because they have no spiritual food laid before them. There’s nothing for them to eat with regard to their souls. How thankful we ought to be if we enjoy the benefits of faithful preaching, that we can sit under the word of God, hear the gospel expounded, hear the things of Christ explain. Remember how Christ mourned because you saw people as sheep without a shepherd. wondering about. In the Old Testament, we read the Levites were required to read the law, give the sense of the passage, and cause the people to understand the meaning. And that’s really what preaching is. It’s reading of the scriptures, explaining them, and applying them in some fashion, to the life of individuals. Where there’s no message from God, people are going to perish. Sadly, sound preaching to day is not appreciated as it should be. Most people consider it boring, too harsh, and as I love, my favorite, it makes people feel uncomfortable. People have itching ears. They want to hear preachers that are going to say smooth things to them. But my friends, what benefits the soul is that which convicts us of sin, turns us to the right ways of the Lord, causes us to walk in godliness, that’s what’s beneficial to your soul. You find churches are more concerned about growth in numbers, improving their finances. It’s almost as if it’s like a secular business. We’ve got to expand the business. My friends, we ought to be concerned whether the whole council of God is being proclaimed. We ought to be concerned whether someone is teaching the truth. Your story is told that when the world’s greatest diamond mines in South Africa were discovered in 1866, at the time people were unaware of the prevalence of diamonds in South Africa. But there was a man called Van Nykirk who found stones that looked to him like diamonds, and they were just laying on the ground. He put. pointed out to people, these look like diamonds, and people said, don’t be ridiculous. Diamonds in the dust, there to pick up, you’ve got to be a fool. Well, Van Nyker wasn’t put off. He decided he’d sent some of the stones to a famous geologist, Dr. Atherton. And although the geologist was skeptical at first, he ran them through his tests. And sure enough, they were really diamonds. It’s astonishingly enough, the one of the ones he looked at was a first-class diamond valued at 500 pounds. And in 1870, that was a lot of money. Well, Van Newark and his friend O’Reilly went back to where they found the diamonds, and they picked them all up, and they made an absolute fortune while everybody else was walking over them and treating them as if they were ordinary rocks. Faithful preaching is like a valuable diamond. it’s precious to know to those who know the value of it and yet to most it’s considered useless and worthless or as the scripture indicates foolishness foolishness it’s simply ignored it’s considered unworthy of people’s of tension and therefore it gets trampled underfoot my friends we ought to pray that God would sustain those churches where the faithful preaching of the word of God is taking place because one day you may not have that advantage. One day it may be withdrawn, and we will not have that benefit that we have presently. So preaching is a valuable thing because it proclaims the truth concerning Christ and his salvation. Well, the sailor coming back from a whaling boy, which wasn’t too impressed with his speak, because he didn’t have any harpoons in his message. Well, God’s harpoon. here is the preaching of the Word of God. It’s how he snags, if you would, the elect, how he draws them in and brings them to salvation in. Well, let us call.