Thank you, Brelan. Can we turn pleased in God's
Word tonight to the book of Titus, the Epistle of Paul, the
Titus to the chapter 1 and we're just going to read the first 4
verses. Epistle of Paul, the Titus and
the chapter 1, and we'll just concentrate for our reading on
the 1st 4 verses. It's a 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, but hath in due times manifested
His word through preaching, which is committed unto me
according to the commandment of God our Saviour, the Titus, mine
own Son, after the common faith, grace, mercy and peace from God
the fower and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Amen. May God bless thee.
Short reading of his word. Let's seek his face again.
Fower. We thank you for the people that
are gathered tonight in this meeting, the gospel meeting.
We thank you for the hymns that have been sung, the reading of
the word, giving of the testimony.
And now, Lord, we need thy power to preach the word.
Let it not return void unto thee, but let it rower have free
course and be glorified and give me the power that I need to
preach it in Jesus name, Amen. Amen.
It's those words there of verse 2 it says concerning the Lord in
hope of eternal life, which God, God that cannot lie.
Paul wrote this epistle, this letter to Titus in in whom he
had left in verse five behind there in the island of Crete,
and he left them there effectively to set up a New
Testament church. He was there to win souls and
then to see the people who had been saved, discipled and
brought into the fellowship and nurtured in the faith.
And then out of that church, hopefully our churches would
come as the word of God spread on the island.
In verses 6 to 9, we have some of the strict qualifications of
the elder because we believe, as we would in this church, that
this would have been a Presbyterian Church.
And a Presbyterian Church is run by the prespers.
It's run by the elders of the church.
And when we go for elders in the church, well, it's not just
anybody meets the qualifications.
And you'll notice here in verses 6 to 9 how strict the
qualifications are. And then in verses 10, right
through to verse 16, we see why such strong and spiritual men
are needed. And we get a lot of insight
there into the great enemy of the gospel, the devil.
He is strong, the enemy is aggressive.
And those who are ordained to be shepherds and overseers all over
the flock, they must be stronger.
Again, there's going to be a great battle fought, and these
men need to be equipped if these individual congregations are
going to survive and to prosper. An important and vital as such
an orderly arrangement might be. The strength of the church does
not ultimately depend on human faithfulness.
There's a lower foundation LED here, a stronger foundation.
And that's before we get to the elders.
That is in our text. That is the faithfulness of God
to his own word. That's what our text says, as is
the assurance. God who cannot lie.
These are glorious words. God cannot lie.
With three main thoughts tonight, we'll move quickly
through them. First of all, number one, we
have here the character that produces the text.
The character that produces the text, we're told right away God
cannot lie. And why is it or how is it that
God cannot lie? You and I, as we know, have that
sad ability to lie. The Bible says that God be true,
but every man a liar, all men are liars.
We have lied, of course, in the past haven't.
We would have to confess to that.
Probably one of the first real sins that we got into.
When we were queried, as were we up to some misdemeanour and
maybe as young as three or four, we tried to blush it out with
our mowers and we said mum, it wasn't me and it was me and mum
knew it was us. Because when you try to look
innocent, you never look as much.
You're never as much guilty when you try to look innocent.
So probably at an early age we told a little lie and it's
likely impossible, at least that we will do so again.
I'm pretty sure that Peter never planned to panic and the lie
when he was confronted about his association with the Lord Jesus.
And we know that he lied and that he lied with those some
curses and he said on three occasions, I know not the man he
denied he lied about his relationship with the Lord
Jesus. And we all know our our weakness
and our capability will take in lying.
But it is distinctly said that God cannot lie.
We have it worded elsewhere, the same truth, It is impossible,
the same idea. It is impossible for God to lie.
And this is because we all act according to our natures.
The Saviour used the illustration about the bad tree.
The bad tree can only produce bad fruit, but the good tree can
only produce the good fruit and God's nature.
What type of God are we worshipping tonight?
He is one who is 100% holy. Holy, holy, Holy is the Lord God
of hosts, and no one yet has ever been able to point to even
one occasion where the promise of God has failed.
First Kings 1856. There hath not filled one word
of all his good promises. And that's why the Bible says as
it does at the lip of truth shall be established forever.
You look at this book that is in your hands.
It has sought intact from its earliest days.
It has survived every attack upon it.
Every effort has been made to corrupt this book.
Efforts have been made to ban this book.
There's certain countries of this world that if you were
caught with this book in your possession, you would find
yourself behind bars. You could be tortured and put to
death. Every effort has been made
nearer home to ridicule this book.
But this book not only survives, this book prospers and
flourishes. The Bush burneth, but it is not
consumed. And even as we speak, all over
the world tonight, there are hundreds if not thousands of
translators. They are working today.
They give this book to new people in their native tongues.
This book has survived. And this book has survived
because God cannot lie. Not only does He positively
promote the lip of truth, but he attacks the telling of lies.
One of the seven things which he hates and abominates is a false
witness that speaketh lies. The 9th commandment is Thou
shalt not bear false witness. Thou shalt not lie against your
neighbour. Proverbs 19 and verse 5 says a
false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh
lies shall not escape. And all liars, that's what the
book says. All liars will have their part
in the lake of fire. It's not in the character or the
scope of God to lie. This is the character that gives
us our text. And then notice, secondly, here
we have the consequences that promote our text.
These things are told us here that we may profit from them.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is
profitable, profitable for doctrine, for reproof,
correction, instruction, and righteousness.
Paul claims such profit for this very letter which he wrote to
Titus. Luke there chapter 3 and the
versi now deserve what it says. This is a faithful saying, and
these things I will that thy affirm constantly that they
which have believed in God may be careful to maintain good
works. These things are good and
profitable on the men, but they're only good, and they're
only profitable if they're acted upon.
Our ways are unclaimed treasures which will benefit ours but not
us. And since God cannot lie, then
we should heed His prognosis of the wickedness of our hearts.
What has God got to say about me?
What is God saying to me? What is God saying about me?
That's what we ought to think about when we come to the
Scripture and God looks into the human heart and He gives us
prognosis, and His prognosis is not good.
He tells us us that we have all sinned and He knows what He's
talking about. We have all sinned and we have
all come short of His glory. We have all incurred guilt, as
is what we call total depravity. It's a fundamental doctrine.
In other words, the whole man is affected, including his will.
Way back in the days of the Reformation with a man called
Martin Luther, the hallway there, the roommate there is
named after him, the great Martin Luther, and he fought
with the Roman Catholic apologist, a man called Erasmus,
A Dutchman from Rotterdam. And Luther refuted Erasmus in
his book, which was called The Bondage of the Will, whereby he
showed clearly that man had willingly sold himself in the
spiritual slavery, in the spiritual bondage, and that
man's wicked heart governed man's wicked actions.
That's not a popular doctrine and even within some evangelical
churches, evidently those that are not of the Reformed faith
would be very wouldn't be long. Do you get an objection to that?
But it's a Bible doctrine. That's why we're preaching it
tonight. It teaches us that an unsaved
man, an unsaved woman is a spiritual slave of the devil,
held captive by the devil at his will.
And it's God himself who tells us God cannot lie.
You know, sometimes you, you hear about it in the news or
certain or on some of those documentary type programmes set
up, they look at the scammers and sometimes they go after the
rogue builders. The builders who knock the doors
maybe have some little pensioner woman living on her own.
And they say, you know, we're over the road here and it's just
looking up here at your roof and you're going to run into big
problems with that roof. You need a new roof, going to
cost thousands. And of course, the wee woman
doesn't want the winters coming in.
One thing you need over your head is a roof that doesn't
leak, a roof that's not going to light you down when the winter
comes in and she pays out thousands of pounds for work
that never needed to be done. It was the work of the scammer.
It was the work of a liar who took advantage of that little
woman with all her life savings, bladder for thousands of pounds
made off, having done very little work, having not fixed
anything, for nothing needed to be fixed.
And away they went, a lot richer.
And she was superior. But listen, God is not like
that. God cannot lie.
There's no exaggeration when He says concerning the wickedness
of our hearts. The whole head, this is a
picture that He paints. The whole head, this is total,
is sick. The whole heart is faint from
the sole of the feet to the crown of the head.
There is no soundness in it but wounds and bruises and putrefied
sores that have not been closed. They're bound up nor mollified
with ointment. And you can't argue against
that. If you do, then you're making
God to be a liar. You're confronting Him.
And all that does is just AB sin on the sin that's going into
denial. Denial never changed anything.
This is God looking into the wickedness of our heart.
And since God cannot lie, then we need to believe Him when He
says that we are totally helpless to save ourselves.
And this may be seen to make a bad job worse.
Again, and unpopular, but I remind you again, I must come
back to this again. This is God speaking.
This is His book. I'm quoting verses of Scripture
here. I'm referring to what God has
said. He's telling us the truth.
And I remind you tonight, the only thing that makes men free
and sets them free is the truth of God.
And since God cannot lie, we ought to believe the record that
God has given of His Son, because we were so sinful,
because we are so helpless, that only the Son of God, only the
Christ of God, can save us. And when He saves us, it will be
by grace through faith, not of works, lest any man should boast
that our sin necessitated the atoning suffering of the Son of
God. And Calvary of we would be see,
if God was under no obligation to send his Son, because he was
under no obligation to save us, He could have left us as a race
to perish in our sins. But if he's going to save, as
the Bible says he is, he come to save his people from their sins,
then that necessitated Christ, the Son of God dying for us upon
the cross. Who put Christ upon the cross?
Judas played us a little bit, didn't they?
Peter who forsook him and all the disciples who forsook him.
And you have Pilot there, you have Herod there, you have the
Jewish authorities there you have the crowd that they whipped
up. They all put their little bit
into this here. But ultimately, ultimately, God
put His Son on the cross. God delivered him up for us all.
He went to the cross according to the determinate council and
the foreknowledge of God. And since God cannot lie, then
we must believe him when he utterly rubbishes and he utterly
rejects every our supposed way our on his own.
Twice in the Word of God, twice in the word of God.
He warns there is a way that seemeth right on to a man, but
the ends are off are the ways of death.
You know, in a civic sense we must and we do extend the
everyman, that civic right to worship and teach even a false
religion. We don't drive them out.
We don't vandalise our halls, our chapels or whatever.
We recognise they have a civil right as much as we do.
That's the society in which we live and we're out of our own
civil religious liberty and therefore we must extend it the
ours. But listen, we also reserve the
civic right and and believe it is our basic, our basic
Christian duty to warn every man that man made religions will at
last be seen to be damnable heresy.
And if someone lives and dies in that religion faithful to its
teaching, then they'll be lost forever.
The book compels us to say that because God says it and God
cannot lie. And the question tonight is not
is this palatable? Is this in to modern taste?
Does this fit the current agenda?
I am out of step with current agenda with government agenda,
but I'm in line with the word of God.
Governments lie, politicians lie.
But here's the word of him. He cannot lie.
It must be true. And that's what ultimate matters
in the book that I referred to earlier, the Bondage of the
well, Erasmus, Luther's opponent.
Erasmus became a cardinal. He was tested by Luther.
Luther was some debater. Luther didn't take nonsense.
He knew the weak spot of Erasmus, and he writes in his
words. He says, what say you Erasmus?
Is it enough? Is it not enough that you submit
your opinion to the scriptures? Do you submit it to the decrees
of the Church? Also, what can the church decree
that has not decreed in the scriptures?
The Church isn't infallible, got themselves a new Pope.
He's not unfallable. He thinks he has.
I know there are certain circumstances all have to come
together. But he claims infallibility, and
as Luther told them at that great the council that he stood
before at the data, worms, popes and councils have erred.
The New Testament church was the Jewish church.
They were the people who brought the false witnesses to condemn
the Lord Jesus. Oh, what an error that was.
But listen, God cannot lie. He says, have I not written on
to you things, excellent things in counsel and in knowledge.
And if you have a false belief and it's been with you since
your early days, that does not line up with the word of God
that you can try and do your best and so on all like that.
I'm saying to you tonight, jettison it, jettison it.
Get it out of your mind immediately.
Be be determined to reject it. Throw it off, throw it off and
embrace the word of Him. He cannot lie.
This leads me to my third and my last point.
I've seen the character that produced the text, the holiness,
the faithfulness of God, the consequences that promote the
text, that we're lost, we're undone, we're unable to save
ourselves. See.
Thirdly, hear the choice that profits from the text.
You see, you can't remain indifferent to these things.
Once seen, they cannot be unseen, they can't be safely
ignored, they can't be disregarded.
Certainly they cannot be refuted.
And the great issue then centres round the question that was
first posed by Pilot What shall I do then with Jesus?
Listen to what Jesus said. I am the way, the truth, and the
life. No man cometh unto the flower,
but by me coming to the flower means to be reconciled to him.
It means to be accepted with him, and it can only be by
Christ because Christ has cleansed us from our sins.
This is something we receive in an act of faith being justified
nowhere, great Reformation tax being justified by faith.
We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and faith
only comes because it believes the record that God has given in
true is true. What is faith?
It's essentially trust. It's trust.
It trusts God's word as something that will stand.
And no matter who says what against it, no matter who
ridicules it, no matter who says I have proved it wrong, faith
says no, I believe God. Not what Paul said in that great
shipwreck. I believe God that it shall be
even as it was told me, because God cannot lie and his great
hymn marvelling at the great divine love that brought the
immortal God to bear our sins to the tree.
Old Charles Wesley made this following application.
Listen to the words is crucified.
He said He has crucified for me and you to bring us rebels back
to God. Believe, believe the record
true. Ye now are bought with Jesus
blood. Pardon for sin flows from his
side. My Lord, my love is crucified,
and when you put your faith in Christ, and that's your choice
as your only saviour, realising your lost estate, then you
profit exceedingly. Because the moment you do that,
the Bible says you pass from death on the life and you shall
not come in the condemnation. There is an alternative.
It is to live and to die in unbelief.
The live and die and unbelief is the live and die in sin.
Jesus said if you die in your sins where I am there, there you
cannot come at a great loss. That's a loss that can never be
restored. There's no second chance after
death. The eye lids close in death.
The last breath is uttered. The body lies still.
The soul is out into God's great on ending eternity, and there's
no way back. If you die in Christ, you go to
be with him, which is far better.
But to die in unbelief is to be lost forever, eternally ruined,
without any hope of redemption. But, but why do that tonight?
You know this is still the day of grace, still the day of
mercy. Doors of the meeting house are
open. Gospels preached, proclaimed one
way or another. Why not tonight, if you're still
unsaved, come to know him as your Saviour.
God himself invites you to come. Christ invites you to come.
Come unto me, He says all that are weak and have a laden, and I
will give you rest. He gives you an assurance, an
assurance. Him that cometh to me I will in
no wise cast out. And not only will he not lie, He
cannot lie. It is impossible.
But you need to come, and it would be a great thing tonight
as we bring this gospel meeting to an end.
It would be a great thing tonight if you were to come to
Him and to call upon His name. Whosoever shall call on the name
of the Lord shall be saved just where you're sitting in your
seat. You ask the Lord to save you.
Lord, I believe your word is true, and on the basis of your
invitation, I'm going to come save me.
Save me for Jesus sake, and you'll do it.
Or if you want to speak with us afterwards, we'll not be running
away quickly after the meeting. If you want to wait behind and
chat with us, well, we're willing to do that as well.
But you trust the Saviour, Don't leave the meeting on converted.
We'll close the meeting just with a little word of prayer.
I will give thanks for the the food that the Lord has provided
and then we're free to have the supper.
But don't leave on converted. Heavenly follower, we thank you
for your word tonight, the word to him that cannot lie.
We thank you, Lord, that we have trusted His word and we're still
trusting. You've never failed as you never
will. And we thank your Father that
all who come will be received. Sinners Jesus will receive.
Send the word of grace to all. Thank you to Lord for the food
that thou hast supplied, and as eaten, drink to your matchless
glory, for we ask it in Jesus name, Amen.
Amen. Thank you for listening so well.