Address—C. Hendricks
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Titus chapter 3, verse one put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers.
To obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work.
To speak evil of no man.
To be no brawlers, but gentle, showing all meekness unto all men.
For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish.
Disobedient, deceived, serving diverse lusts and pleasures.
Living in malice and envy.
Hateful and hating one another.
But after that, the kindness and love of God, our Savior toward man, appeared.
Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us.
Washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.
Which he shed on us abundantly.
Through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by his grace.
We should be made heirs according to the hope.
Of eternal life. I was thinking of this portion.
In connection with the ministry that we had before us last night.
Which was the Christ our Redeemer?
And the.
The passage of the Red Sea. This beautiful type in the Old Testament.
The crossing of the Red Sea. We have a picture of that in this chapter.
In fact, we have what answers to the Red Sea and type here in Titus 3.
The children of Israel we saw were in ******* in Egypt.
Speaks of the world.
From ******* to Pharaoh and the Egyptians, to Satan, the Prince and God of this world, and to the and to the flesh, we were in *******.
And.
This chapter begins with an exhortation to the Saints.
To be subject to principalities and powers to those who are set in authority over us.
To obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work.
To speak evil of no man. To be no brawlers, but gentle.
That is, the Christian is to show himself one who is not a fighter in the physical sense of things. That's what a brawler is, but to show gentleness, showing all meekness unto all men. Gentleness does not give offense, and meekness does not take offense.
So a gentle person will not step on another's toes, and a meek person will not get angry if you step on his toes.
These are the two qualities of Christ himself, Paul says, I beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ.
And then he reminds Titus of our condition, what the state we were once in.
And you'll go back in the type. Now you go back to the children of Israel. They were in ******* in Egypt. They were slaves to Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and we were slaves to sin.
We were under the power of Satan.
Paul was given the gospel to preach it, to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God.
God has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the Kingdom of the Son of His love.
He has brought us to Himself. He set us free from the tyranny of sin.
And from the power of Satan.
Since the children partake of flesh and blood, He also himself likewise took part of the same that through death he might the Lord Jesus Christ might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them, who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to *******.
Hebrews 2. We had all this before us last night, so I'm just repeating some of it for those.
Who are not here?
And what was our state, according to the way Titus views it, when we were slaves to sin and slaves to Satan, we ourselves, verse 3 also were sometimes or once foolish.
Foolish.
We lived our lives just as though God did not exist, and it didn't matter how we did things, as long as we pleased ourselves. We were foolish.
The fool has said in his heart, know God for me and no one is going to tell me what to do. I'm going to live according to.
The way I want to live.
And as.
That's the way the world is. Foolish. Foolish. That's what we were.
We were once slaves to sin. We were foolish, disobedient. It's interesting that word disobedient. It's a very kindred word in the original Greek language to the word obedient.
00:05:10
The root word is is to hear.
And then there's a preposition that goes before it, and there's two prepositions. The one before the word to hear means to disobey, and the other one means to obey.
And the one that means to disobey is.
To hear alongside of it's. It's like your father tells you something or your teacher tells you something or an older brother or sister tells you something and you respond. That's your opinion. I have mine.
Minded as good as yours. You're not hearing in subjection. The word that means obedience is hupo koyed to here under to be subject to the one that is speaking to you. Think of what it would be in the army.
If the Sergeant gave an order and the private said, well, that's your opinion, Sergeant, I have mine.
That wouldn't work, would it?
The person would be severely disciplined and punished with that kind of an attitude. But that's the attitude of men and women today in this world, in children and young people.
Disobedient disobedience, the obedient 1 hears under hears in an attitude of submission and subjection to the one that gives the order. And the Lord Jesus is our Lord. We've come to know Him as our Lord. We were noticing last night. We are not our own any longer. We're bought with the price He has bought us. We're redeemed now. We're purchased by the precious blood of Christ. We are not our own. We are not free any longer to do.
Our will. But we've been set free to do His will. That's true liberty.
Doing your own will was ******* slavery to sin and to Satan. We live that way. We were foolish, we were disobedient, we were deceived. Man is deceived, and he's about to believe the greatest deception that has ever been promoted down here.
Worship the Antichrist, the Lord said to the Pharisees. I am come in my Father's name, and you receive me. Not another will come in his own name. Him you will receive. That's the Antichrist.
To refuse the true Messiah is to open oneself up to the reception of the false.
Deceived man is deceived. We were mentioning last night. The common thought in man is that Satan doesn't even exist. He's just a figment of the Dark Ages and of man's superstitious nature.
He is a real power, a real person, a real being.
And he is the enemy of God, and he is the Prince of this world. As we noticed, he is the God of this world. He is called the Prince.
Of the power of the air. The air is something that is ubiquitous. It is everywhere. There's no place there isn't air, otherwise you would die. That's the most essential thing for life. You must be able to breathe. And the very air we breathe is everywhere. And he's the Prince of the power of the air. His influence permeates everything.
Especially the airwaves today.
Well.
Serving diverse lusts and pleasures.
Man is living to gratify the pleasures of his flesh.
There are four natural goals for the natural man, four goals for the natural man Power.
Riches.
Pleasure.
And fame.
Solomon had the mall.
He had power, he had riches more than any other.
He had pleasure more than any other. 700 wives, 300 concubines.
He denied not himself any joy, he said. And he was famous, the most famous man.
The wisest man.
And yet his estimate of it all? He had it all, he said. Vanity of vanities. Emptiness. It's emptiness. It's pursuit of the wind.
Pursuit of the wind. Just plain emptiness. It does not satisfy.
The heart of man is too big to be satisfied by this world and its attractions.
The attractions of this world are very deceptive. They hold out the promise of fulfillment, but when you achieve what you're pursuing.
You're not fulfilled.
There's always something more, something beyond it that you must have.
Nothing satisfies down here. That's a deception.
Serving diverse lusts and pleasures, going from one pleasure to the next, Living in malice.
Malice is evil intention to injure another.
00:10:01
He did me harm. I am going to get him back.
I saw a bumper sticker once, it says I don't get mad, I get even.
Living in malice, he plotted revenge against the one that had done him an injury.
This is the kind of lives that we used to live before we were saved.
Some of you may have been raised in a Christian home, many of you, and you've been spared much of this.
But if you even if you have, bear in mind that you have the same evil nature.
As anyone else, even though you may have been spared much that some of us that were not raised in Christian homes, I for one was not raised as a Christian, I was raised as a heathen.
And I got saved as a young man of 19.
And then brought the gospel home. And then my mother got saved. And then my sister. And then finding my father.
And mom and Dad are home in the presence of the Lord Jesus.
Well, living in malice and envy. Envy not being satisfied with what we have.
We envy others that may have something more than we have.
Hateful and hating one another.
Well, the gospel has come in now.
And he says after that.
The kindness and love of God, our Savior toward man, appeared.
Not by works of righteousness, which we have done. That was tried for 1500 years under law. The Moses received the law. The law was given by Moses. Man was tried 1500 years under law.
And the Lord pronounced upon it. He said in John 7, Did not Moses give you the law? And none of you keepeth the law. Why go you about to kill me? None of you keep us the law. He was talking to the self-righteous Pharisees. They hadn't kept it.
And Stephen speaking in the power of the Holy Spirit again in the 7th chapter of Acts, this time he said, You who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.
These are two witnesses of infallible worth.
That of our Lord Jesus and that of the Spirit of God speaking through Stephen. Man on the ground of law keeping is lost, so he says, not by works of righteousness, which we have done.
Says in Deuteronomy, after they heard the law, he said if you do it, it will be your righteousness.
Not God's righteousness, but your own, something that you have wrought out on your own efforts. And on that ground we're all lost. All lost not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to His mercy. He saved us.
He saved us out from that condition of ******* just like He saved Israel from Egypt. He saved Israel out from under Pharaoh's power and authority and from the Egyptians that heaped this hard ******* upon them. He saved them physically. He has saved us spiritually.
Set us free from the power of Satan. People say I am saved and I always say what are you saved from? Well usually the answer comes unsaved from hell. Thank God we are saved from hell. But what are you saved from down here?
That's still future, and it's wonderful to know you're saved from hell. But what are we saved from down here? Sin.
Sin, all these evil things that we once were guilty of and we once did. And this is not a complete list. There are many, many other things.
That we can do.
And some of us have done.
Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to His mercy. He saved us. He has delivered us from this world system, young people.
You are different if you belong to the Lord Jesus. He has made you different.
You were once sinners, now you are Saints if you believe in the Lord Jesus, sanctified in Christ.
Set apart.
Holy, you're not the same, you're different. You're bought with the price.
You've changed masters. You don't belong to Satan any longer. You belong to Christ. He's your new master.
And those evil spirits that once motivated us, it says in Ephesians 2.
That.
Let me read it. We read it last night, but I'll read it again in Ephesians 2. Very important passage.
Verse one and two.
And three, you who were dead in trespasses and sins, that was our state.
Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world.
00:15:02
According to the Prince of the Power of the Air.
The spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.
Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh.
Fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and where by nature the children of wrath.
Even as others, that was our condition.
And then God comes in, but God who is rich in mercy, and so on.
And so we have that in Titus 3 going back to Titus 3.
Our state is described first, our terrible condition.
And then God comes in.
According to his mercy, he saved us. Verse 5. Now notice.
By the washing of regeneration.
And renewing of the Holy Ghost. That expression, the washing of regeneration, is not commonly understood.
It is only found in one other passage of scripture and we might look at it. It's in Matthew 19 I believe. Verse.
27.
Then, answered Peter.
And said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee. What shall we have therefore?
And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me in the regeneration, when is that? That's the Millennium.
In the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon 12 Thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel.
This world is going to be regenerated. This Earth is going to be regenerated.
The desert will blossom as the Rose. There will be handfuls of corn on the top of the mountains. The ploughman will overtake the Reaper.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
The lion and the lamb will dwell together, the sucking child will play on the whole of the ASP's. They shall not hurt nor destroy. In all my holy mountain. What a day that will be, The regeneration. It's like a new birth for this world. The productivity of the land will increase a thousandfold.
That's the regeneration.
This Earth's going to be changed.
From one state to another what we have been changed. Going back to Titus three, He saved us by the washing of regeneration. He took us out of our old condition, our old state, as being in the flesh.
And now we are in the spirit.
Given us his Holy Spirit to indwell in us.
We were once in Adam.
And under the condemnation of being ranged under Adam as our federal head, we are now in Christ. And if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. There's a new creation. All things are passed away. All things are become new. We've been saved from the old and brought into the new, just like Israel went through the Red Sea, those waters of death and judgment on either side, which was their salvation.
It was death and judgment to the.
It's Egyptians that tried to follow, but to the Israelites, it was their salvation. They went through those waters of death.
They were saved. The Washington regeneration. They were before they went through the Red Sea. They were in Egypt. They were in *******. They were under the power and authority of Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Once they got through the Red Sea, their enemies had been all destroyed.
Through the death and resurrection of Christ, the enemy's power has been broken.
And his power has been destroyed. And now we're brought to God. We've changed positions. We're in an entirely new position.
And in a new state.
Romans 8 says Therefore if any man be, therefore there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. We're no longer in Adam, we're in Christ.
And we're in the Spirit, no longer in the flesh.
That's the washing of regeneration.
We've been placed in a new position before God. God sees us now in Christ.
That's marvelous to get a hold of that.
But there's more than that. We needed a new nature, a new life in order to enjoy that new place that he's brought us into.
By the washing of regeneration, and so it says in the renewing of the Holy Ghost.
There's a Newman now. The old man has been dealt with and crucified with Christ and put away.
And now he's given us a new life.
There's a Newman before God. We've changed positions, the washing of regeneration.
And he's given us a new life.
The renewing of the Holy Ghost. And not only did he renew us, not only were we born of the Spirit of God.
But he has shed Him upon us abundantly. This is what is characteristically true of Christianity.
In the Old Testament, all the Old Testament Saints were born again. They all had a new life. But we have something far better than that. Far more than that. We have that. Of course. We have all that they had, and then far more. The Spirit of God has taken up His abode in us. He dwells within us.
00:20:13
The renewing of the Holy Ghost.
And then he says.
Which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior.
Not only as the Spirit of God renewed us, given us a new life, we're born of the Spirit, but we have the Spirit indwelling us. He has been shed on us abundantly. He will never be taken from us. We may grieve Him, we may quench him, but we'll never send him away. And that's the wonderful assurance that we have in Christianity.
And then the final verse 7, that being justified, being accounted and made righteous.
That's what justified means by His grace. That's the source of it. The grace of God is the source of it. We should be made heirs.
According to the hope of eternal life in Paul's ministry, eternal life is held out as a future hope.
We don't have it in the condition that is natural to it. We still we have it. John's ministry says we have eternal life now we have Christ.
Who is that eternal life that was with the Father and was manifested to us? We have life now, but we have it in a foreign environment. We have it in a world of sin.
But when we get home to glory, we'll have it in the place to perish.
So he pulls the cord and he's taken to the surface. He gets up on the ship, takes the helmet off.
And takes off the diving suit and he breathes the same air up above that he was breathing on the bottom of the ocean.
But in entirely different circumstances, He's breathing it in the native atmosphere to which the air applies. And that's the way it's going to be. We have eternal life now, but we have it in a world which is at enmity with God. When we get home to glory, we'll have it in the sphere that is proper to it. So it's a hope, the hope of eternal life.
That being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs.
Heirs who? There's heirs of God.
What are we heirs to? Joint heirs with Christ. Romans 8.
According to the Hope.
Of eternal life.