Well, here we are again with another broadcast in the book of Titus, chapter 2. If you possibly can, have your Bible ready. You'll get more out of this study. Well, Paul and Titus were friends. They traveled together for some time. And at this point in their lives, Paul was leaving Titus on this island of Crete, and he was given the instructions to set in order the things that are wanting and ordain elders in every city as I had appointed thee. And so he's left with these instructions and Paul moves on. Today, we're looking at chapter two, and he tells this young preacher, he says, but speak thou the things which becomes sound doctrine. Now, if you go down to verse 15, the last verse in this chapter, he goes on again and says, but these things speak. Now, interesting that this chapter starts out with the word but. But is a word that is used to introduce something contrasting with what has already been said. What has already been said is you've got a lot of problems here, Titus. There's vain talkers, there's unruly, there's deceivers. Their mouths need to be stopped. They are full of vanity. There's a lot of problems here. And so, but, he says, speak thou the things which become sound doctrine. And so it is the word but as we said, is used to introduce something contrasting with what has already been said. So it's going to be strikingly different from what they're used to. Titus, are you ready to pay the price to be a real pastor here? You need to set in order the things that are wanting. Now he says, speak thou. It's interesting, we have the word they, and we have the word thou. In chapter one and verse 11, it says they will be teaching things they ought not to teach. In chapter one and verse 16, it says they profess that they know God, but in works they deny him. Now that's a church that Titus had to take and look after. He had to fix that. How are you going to fix that? Well, they gonna do this, but thou, he says, but speak thou the things which become sound doctrine. Now, in the Bible, we have what I call sandwiches here. Actually, in verse number one, we have the bread on one side, and then in verse number 15, we have the bread on the other side, and in between the middle, we have the meat. Verse number one, it says, but speak thou the things which become sound doctrine. Way down verse 15, it says, these things speak. You'll find this quite often in the Bible, where it's summed up together like that, and in the middle of it all is the meat. Now, the first thing that young Titus is told to do here has to do with doctrine. In verse 1, you have the word doctrine. In verse number 7, we have the word doctrine. Verse number 10, you have the word doctrine again. Doctrine, why? That, that, the sound doctrine will influence. This is why you do it. That, it might influence. And what is an influence? Well, it's having the ability to have an effect on the character and behavior of someone. That's what sound doctrine will do. Who will we influence? Well, in verse number 2, it says aged men. aged women in verse number three, young women in verse number four, and young men in verse number six. Well, that's pretty well everybody. Sound doctrine will have an influence on those people. So it better be sound doctrine. The wrong kind of doctrine will also have an influence on them. So he says to Titus, speak the things which become sound doctrine. Now at this point, Titus has a choice. Am I going to go with the sound doctrine? Or am I just going to have some tear-jerking stories in the middle of a few scriptures? Now, if you do that, you might get some results, at least on the surface, that look good, because we all, you know, like those tear-jerking stories that affect our emotions. Now, the Bible says that we're made up of three parts, the body, soul, and spirit. The body is what everybody sees. The soul is the mind, the will, and the emotions. And the spirit is the third part, or the part that God communes with. The Bible says spirit, soul, and body. We call it body, soul, and spirit. That's wrong. It's really the spirit should be first, then the soul, which is the mind, the will, and the emotions, and then the things to do with the body. Now, when you're going to preach sound doctrine, What it does is it allows the Holy Spirit to deal with the spirit of the person who is listening. When we teach just little emotional stories and throw little scriptures in, all that's happening there is we are humanly affecting the mind, will, and the emotions of somebody. Now, if you want long-term effects, it's going to be the Holy Spirit, which is always in total harmony with the Word of God, influencing the spirit of the Christian, which in turn the spirit should dictate to the mind, the will, and the emotions as to how the Christian ought to live. So we need to understand the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christian. The Bible says in Romans 8 and verse number 16, Now the word itself there has been translated himself 58 times. The spirit is not an it, the spirit is a person. The spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit. Now, out there, there's sound doctrine and there's all kinds of other doctrine as well. The Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth, it says, when it comes to these other doctrines or sound doctrine. For instance, in Hebrews 13, 9 talks about strange doctrine. 1 Timothy 4, 1, doctrines of devils. Colossians 2 and 12, the doctrines of men. Then we have the doctrines of the Nicolaitans and the doctrine of Balaam in Revelation 2. 1 Timothy 1, 3 talks about other doctrine. And then Matthew 16, we read about the doctrine of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And Jeremiah 10, 8 talks about doctrine of vanities. There's all kinds of doctrine out there. How am I going to know which is right and which is wrong? Well, it's very simple. The Bible says the Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth. All truth is all truth. So the Holy Spirit will bear witness with our spirit if we are like the Bereans who will have our mind ready to hear the preaching, and then go home and search the Scriptures daily to see whether these things be so. You know, what we do today is we go to church and say, I hope he gets this over with so I can beat all those other people to the restaurant today for lunch. That's all you're doing. You're not going to make it as a Christian. Well, he says to this pastor, this young pastor, speak thou the things. Speak thou the things. He said back here in verse number three of chapter one that he hath in due times manifested his word through preaching. Preaching. Jonah 3 2 he was told I want you to be preaching the preaching that I bid thee Well, what's God want us to preach? It's pretty simple acts 8 and 4 preaching the word 11 and 19 preaching the word acts 15 35 preaching the word 16 and 6 preach the word 2nd Timothy 4 2 they preach the word and Mark 2 and 2, they preach the Word. Acts 6 and 25, they preach the Word. 13 and 5, they preach the Word. Acts 14 and 25, they preach the Word. Acts 15 and 36, they preach the Word. Do you think that would probably be enough for God to get our attention, that He wants us to preach the Word? Titus 1 and 3 says that the Word is manifested through preaching. Now that word preaching is to herald. To herald. We've said this before and we're going to say it again. When the herald came in on his horse, he said, hear ye, hear thee, thus saith the king. He didn't come in to teach. He didn't come in to dialogue. He came in to say, this is what the king says. You better sit up and take notice. He didn't change the message because some people might leave town and then they wouldn't get all the tax money they used to get. He said, this is what the king says. You better listen or you're going to be in trouble with the king. And by the way, the guy in the horse better do what the king says, or he's going to be in trouble with the king, too. Well, that's what it is to preach. Now, the problems that Titus faced was he said, you know, you need to set in order the things that are wanting. What was wrong? Well, there's some people that are teaching wrong things, verse 11. What are you going to do about that? Well, their mouths must be stopped. There's gainsayers in verse 9 through 11 and unruly and vain people and deceivers. And I got to stop their mouths? Yeah, a mouth-stopping Baptist preacher. That's what he needs to be. Well, he had to make a choice. See, we have to make a choice. Titus, how do you choose? Are you going to preach the whole Council of God? Are you going to do what he says here in verse 15 of chapter 2? These things speak and exhort and and rebuke with all authority? Are you going to do that? Are you going to compromise a little bit because they might boot you out? Yeah, they just might, or they'll leave and your church will get smaller. So Titus had to choose. There's choices and there's consequences. Not only that, the listeners had to choose. They had to decide, am I going to listen or am I not going to listen? How will I choose? Now, we have a little story about that back in Ezekiel 317. God has given us an example concerning leadership and concerning listeners. Concerning the leadership, he said, I have made thee a watchman. Hear the word at my mouth, give them warning from me, and if you don't, his blood will I require at thine hand. There's Ezekiel 317. That's the message to the leader. Then the listener, if he turn not from his wickedness, verse 19, he shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul. So everybody has to make a choice. The leader, will I do what God says and deliver my soul even if nobody listens to me? Whether they listen or whether they don't listen, they need to know there's been a prophet in the pulpit. Well, Titus was given instructions to set in order the things that are wanting, and the circumstances of his day are one thing, and the circumstances of today are quite another. However, the Bible says these things are written for our admonition. We have the whole story here. We have the book of Titus to tell us all these things happened unto them, it says in 1 Corinthians 10 and 11. For examples, that is to make impressions on them. And they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come. So we are to be admonished or warned about it. How are we going to handle this? Now, concerning our days, we have different issues than what Titus had to handle. But basically, we're either going to preach sound doctrine or we're going to pussyfoot. Now, some of the issues we have today, I think the main one is something of salvation. We've changed that. We've come in with the damnable heresy that you don't need to repent, and if you believe that doctrine, you're going to hell when you die. Well, Jack Hiles back here in Hammond, Indiana, years ago, he promoted that doctrine, and Curtis Hudson and the Sword of the Lord, his buddy, got behind him, and they promoted it together. Again, if you believe that doctrine, you're going to hell when you die. And what is happening here is we who call ourselves fundamental independent Baptists, we're not going to touch that hot potato. Just leave that alone. No, we shouldn't be leaving alone. We should be preaching the truth. Another problem that we have here is the subject of separation, and that is who we separate from and who we don't. That doctrine used to be taught pretty plainly even back in the late 60s and early 70s, but that's pretty well gone by the way today as well. Well, we need to face the facts. We need to get into the real world. It'd be nice if all we had was sound doctrine, but that's not the way it is. The Bible talks about sound doctrine and strange doctrine. It would be great if all the prophets were telling the truth, but the Bible talks about false prophets. It'd be nice if everybody would just receive the truth, but no, some are going to turn from the truth, the Bible says. Be nice if everybody would just speak the truth, but no, we're going to have our vain talkers whose mouths must be stopped, and they must be stopped, the Bible says here in verse 11, because they subvert or overthrow whole houses, and the houses they're referring to there, had to do with the local churches seven times. In the New Testament, we read about the church that was in their house, and it was organized. They had pastors and deacons and so on, but they're small churches. We've been sold the bill of goods about, you know, we're not successful unless we have a big crowd out there listening to us who really aren't going to do anything we say. So he says their mouths must be stopped. On our next program, we're going to talk a little bit more about how to stop those mouths. Be sure and tune in.