Deny Ungodliness By Paris Reidhead*
Will you please turn to Titus chapter 2. Titus the second chapter and our text this evening verses 11 through 14. May we bow our hearts together in prayer. We thank thee our Father for Thy Word. We thank Thee for the very person of the Godhead who inspired the Word is here to apply it to our hearts and to our lives and so tonight we welcome Thy ministry. We ask Thee to find us where we are, show us what you want us to be make clear to us the first step we should take and then give us grace to obey Thee. We are so dependent on Thee, Father, we do ask that thou wilt stir us up to seek you with our whole hearts. We thank you for these people. We ask blessing upon each one here and the influence, the ministry, the testimony, and the outreach of each life. And so, Father, as we’re here to think not just of ourselves, but those by Thy grace we in turn may be able to touch. To that end bless Thy Word to our hearts. For Jesus sake. Amen.
“The grace of God which bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, 12 Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; 13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; 14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. 15 These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee.”
The apostle is seeking to make clear to the young man Titus God has only one salvation and the grace of God that brings salvation does the same thing in every life to whom salvation comes. And it’s very important for us to understand that. I think we have a tendency to feel that God may work one way in one denomination and another way in another denomination, God may work one way in one country and another way in another country. But such is not the case. Wherever you find one to whom the grace of God has brought salvation that one has been taught identically the same thing: “for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men teaching us” certain things.
Now, it’s imperative that we should understand this scripture. If I were to ask how many of you know John 3:16 every hand would be raised. If I were to ask how many of you know Titus 2:11-14, it might be a different matter. You’ll soon forget me but if you memorize these verses because I am asking you to then you will have something that has enriched your life not only for time but for eternity. Therefore, I would like to press upon you that you write these verses down on a little 3 by 5 card and you take a rubber band and you pin them on the inside of the visor in front of your car. And when you come to a stop light and the traffic is bad, instead of chewing your fingernails or growing ulcers on your ulcers, or something else flip the visor down and start memorizing Titus 2:11-14. And by the time you get home or after you have made a few trips these verses will be yours. Perhaps you aren’t driving, well if you do dishes pin it on the curtain over the sink. Do something! But memorize Titus 2:11 to 14. You’ll find it coming back to your heart again and again.
I want you to notice the first thing that the grace of God that brings salvation teaching us. I suppose we could look at it in terms of the tenses of salvation. I see four here the past perfect tense, the past tense, the present tense, and the future tense. Put it this way, I have been saved, I was saved, I am being saved, and I shall be saved. Someone comes to you and says, “Are you saved?” You’d be justified, I think in light of what the Scripture teaches for it teachers these four tenses, “I have been, I was, I am being, and I shall be saved, and which one are you referring to?” Because they are all there.
Now, “the grace of God that brings salvation” begins in this past perfect tense, I have been saved from the pleasure of sin and the purpose of sinning. You have it here in these words “the grace of God that brings salvation hath appeared to all to whom He brings His salvation teaching us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts.”
Let us take that word ungodliness really it means no God and in essence that’s the very issue that you have recorded in Isaiah when there references made to that event before time, when Lucifer, Prime Minister over the angels most brilliant, beautiful, intelligent, and powerful creature that God ever created used his imagination, which that in itself is not sinful, and speculated on what he would do if he were God. But then there came a moment when it was no longer innocent speculation and it became a personal ambition and it was “I will be like the Most High. I will set my throne above the throne of
the Most High. What is that? No god but me. I will be God. I’ll rule. I’ll choose. I’ll decide.” And that’s what ungodliness is. No god but my whim, my fancy, my ambition, my passion.
And you’ll recall when this same creature came to mother Eve as it’s recorded in the early chapters of Genesis; his argument was, “you shall be as gods” upon your pleasure and interfere with your ambitions and intrude upon your rights. (Gen. 3:5) You be god and don’t have any other god but yourself, so you decide how to be happy, you decide what to do, and when to do it. That’s ungodliness. That’s the essence of sin. That is exactly what you have in Isaiah, we are told that by the Prophet they “turned every one to his own way” each individual enthroned himself his own kingdom of his own heart the governed and rule and chose and decided.(Isa. 53:6) That is the essence of this terrifying horrible thing called sin.
Now it can lead in two directions it can lead up and out, it can lead down and out, but it’s nevertheless regardless of whether it leads one into culture those socially accepted types of behavior or out into some other area you would call lawless or criminal. In its essence it’s the same thing, no god but me. I will do what I want to do. And so the first thing the grace of God does to anyone, to whom God brings salvation, is to teach them to deny the very principle of ungodliness. This is exactly why when the Lord Jesus confronted that large company of people in Luke 14 verse 26, he stated, “If any man hate not his father, mother, husband, wife, brother, and sister yeah he’s own life, also he can’t be my disciple.” He can’t even begin to learn about me. The first thing he has to learn about Me is that I am God and that I am going to insist upon the place that man refused to give me in his revolt and I won’t compromise with him. I am God said Christ and I will behave as God and I will demand as God only as God has the right to demand. And if you want to come to Me you have to recognize that at the very outset but My sovereignty transcends the right to all human relationships. Now that’s cutting quite deep isn’t it? But he didn’t stop there. He said, “If anyone doesn’t take up his cross and come follow me. He can’t be my disciple.” (Luke 14:27) He said, When you come to me, you have to recognize that I am God and that you have no more right after you’ve come to Me to determine your own course and your own career and formulate your own plans and initiate your own activity that a person has who’s nailed to a cross. I am God and My sovereignty extends to every activity of human life and when you come to me you are voluntarily restricting yourself as an effectively as if nails were through your hands and through your feet. Those are the conditions. I am God said Christ and therefore if you come to Me you come to God. If you receive Me you receive God. Only God has a right to make that kind of a demand and I make it, because I’m God.
Then He proceeded to say, “If any man does not forsake all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:33) My sovereignty transience the right to all possessions, of talent, of time, of money, of skill, anything that you possess when you come to Me you recognize that I am God and there by your coming you relinquish all right to everything to which you might of had previously an intrinsic right. I’m not going to compromise said He I’m not going to deceive you. You can’t even get into kindergarten and start the first lessons and the pre-primer until you understand that I am God. And that’s implied in these words “the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men teaching us to deny” the principle of no God in my life but me. Deny ungodliness.
You say well I’ve never heard of anything like that. It isn’t a question whether you ever heard it; it’s a question of what you do about it when you hear. If the grace of God brought salvation then you say, “Aha that’s what I mean. That’s what I meant when I accepted Jesus. That’s what Christ means to me.”
We aren’t interested in trying to correct your history we’re trying to protect your future and therefore we’re trying to bring you face to face with the simple implication of the Word of God. And if in your understanding salvation you did not under- stand that it implies denying ungodliness, then it is high time we got to it don’t you think. It’s a whole lot better to find out the worst about ourselves now all we have time enough to do something about it then some other time when it is too late. And so I don’t mean to disturb you but if you’re disturbed you ought to have been disturbed, let’s put it that way. And therefore this is what is involved in denying ungodliness, denying the principle. That I have intrinsic right to rule govern and controlmy life.The essence of sinand when “the grace of God that brings salvation”brings you right there. Inother words, this is a definition of the concept and idea of repentance a change of mind and attitude from one that has characterized us previously, I’ll govern my life, I’ll choose, I’ll decide, I’ll be, I’ll have get and do, to another attitude Thy will be done. And so it is. Christ said, “Except you repent you’ll perish.”(Luke 13:3) It’s implicit in this deny ungodliness. It is just another way of
saying repentance. But you’ll notice that it says, “Deny ungodliness and worldly lusts.” All that’s in the world we are told are three things: “the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.” (I John 2:16)
Now there’s three basic forms of idolatry in the Old Testament and these three concepts idolatry or aspects or forms of idolatry were the cause of the downfall of Israel. They’re going into chastisement, judgment and captivity again and again. Let us look at them briefly. Historically the first form of idolatry that occurred in the scripture was the worship of Ashtaroth, Ashterah. It really began earlier it began with that man called Nimrod in Genesis. The word Nimrod the mighty hunter literally means a Spearsmen. Not Spearmen out of the plains finding venison but Spearman taking up a spear in defiance against God, another words a rebel.
Nimrod was a mighty rebel against the Lord and in his rebellion he organized society to concur with him. And he organized all religion around one concept namely sexual indulgence. He dignified it with ritual and with teachings. He built a temple dedicated to it and he installed his father’s wife, whom he had taken as his wife, Semiramis as the goddess to be worshiped at this tower. And it was there that Society found it’s first legalized, organized, institutionalized of sexuality. And God of course visited the scene with great judgment. And if you don’t think so, you should have been with me in Africa when we came to one littlehill in the Sudan Ethiopian border.And there were four tribesaround this conical shaped hill.Andprobably that level where they lived was not more than oh 12 or 15 miles around it and these four tribes with four languages. They had once been large tribes of people in the Sudan, but as the migration of Nilotic people had come in from Ethiopia. They had made war against the tribes had driven them until now these little pockets were there strangely enough in the small restricted area the people did not know the other languages. They were so frightened they just stayed right there in the little area they had. Oh, the people that were right next would know it but in this area were these four distinct languages. And quite separate not just little dialectical differences. They were small pockets residual pockets of what had once been larger tribes. And it was proof sufficient of the terrifying nature of the judgment that God brought when he scattered man and He confused the language.
Well, the next form of idolatry that occurred was the worship of Baal. The word Baal is a Semitic word that means owner. And it refers to the evil spirit the controlled given geographical area. You see in that day the human family is confined quite much to the Tigris Euphrates basin. All the evil spirits as far as I understand are the angels that fell with Satan when he was cast out of heaven. And if anyone questions the reality the powers of darkness, there’s only one thing I can say you haven’t been a missionary. Had you been a missionary where we’ve been, you don’t question. And the owner was therefore an evil spirit that was given a certain precinct to administer and he would make this through the witch doctor demon possessed or demon influenced people. He would establish the sacrifice be demanded and the ritual and tribal markings and so on. But the idea was to placate the evil spirit that had the power to bring lightning to burn up the harvest, the crop before it was harvested or keep rain from coming or to cause hail to beat it down into the ground. By placating this demon or evil spirit, they had crop insurance if you please and in so doing they could get a harvest and a harvest would give them money. And therefore this was the practice. And Baal worship was really an effort to appease the spirit owner in a given place. They talk about Baal pea oil or Baal kir jack but the purpose to acquire funds with which one could get things. So here’s a farmer with a little field and his wife says to him, “Dear, you better sacrifice to the evil spirit.” “Oh, we are forbidden to do that we can’t do that.” “You better do it.” And so quietly surreptitiously kill the little sheep and sprinkle the blood on the rocks and have a good cry. And so this is what God said about His people Israel even after Joshua, they fear the Lord and they serve the gods of the land and they sacrifice to the evil spirits. But you see the reason for it was they wanted things without sacrificing to the evil spirits might be the equivalent to cheating on income tax or being dishonest in business or cruel or something else.
And then the third type of idolatry that God condemned was the worship of Moloch. Moloch is a Semitic word that means king. It’s the radical the consonants of the word Melek, which is still used in Arabic language. And it had reference to sacrifice directly to Satan for the purpose of obtaining the third form of indulgence. The first was the gratification of the senses, the second was the gratification of the eyes, and the third was pride of life with position over ones fellows. According to the archaeological evidence, Moloch was depicted by a large regal figure carved out of stone or made of blocks of stone. Probably 20 feet tall from the ground to the top of the figures head. Seated upon a throne, thighs together, arms extended in such a way that the hands craved so would form a basin over the thighs. And a charcoal fire would be built would be started in the
basin and there were tunnels through the back of the rock and the priest behind would use large skins as bellows and would force the air up so as to get the fire get the charcoal fire exceedingly hot. There was a basin lining in there so the stone itself didn’t crack, but here was a fire.
Now, the worshiper would come with a little child 12 days old was a preferable age, a wee first born son if possible and the mother husband and wife come with a baby and they would tell the priests what they wanted. They wanted a position the mayor of the town or the elected to the Congress or whatever the equivalent was in that day. And they would tell him they were willing to give Baal their son. And this is what the scripture condemns when it says Israel made “their children pass through the fire.” (Eze. 20:31) The parents would stand down there some 10 feet above the ground would be the basin flame of fire and the father would take his little son and look at him with whatever tenderness he could since he was ambitious to the point of sacrificing this little child and then trying to establish the trajectory as a man trying to make a free throw with a basketball, he would then throw the little child with the expectation that it would land squarely in the fire and be consumed.
And this is why God condemns the worship of Moloch and the passing of the children through the fire. And so when the Holy Spirit says here teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, He’s not talking about something light and little. He’s talking about the same thing that you have in 1st John 2:15,16 where you read “If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him for all that is in the world the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” And so it is that He is saying that if you have grace of God has brought salvation to you, you have been taught by God to deny ungodliness and to denyworldly lust you’verepudiated these idolsofsexualindulgenceand the acquisition of things and the pride of life positional over one’s fellows as being the grounds or the source or the means or the measure of happiness.
Now obviously if you are Christian you are still going to have a need for food and all the appetites God has given and pronounced as good and there will be things and there will be opportunities of service, but the difference is this, if the grace of God has brought salvation your happiness no longer is dependent upon the approval of the world. If you love the father then you are no longer bound to have to placate the world in terms of fashion or in terms of things or in terms of position. And if you love God you want to please God if you love the world you want to please the world and the first thing the grace of God that brings salvation does is to teach us to deny the authority, the tyranny, the control, of government of our appetites and of things and of position. And it’s a release, a relief and worldly lusts are here are synonymous with these three forms of idolatry.
That’s negative isn’t it? That is a turning as Paul said to the church Thessalonica when he wrote to them. He said, “You turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for his Son from heaven.” (I Thes. 1:9,10) Turn to God from idols and turning to God is that which is here given at as denying ungodliness. Turn to God to rule no longer under the rule of the god of this world, no longer controlled by his principles, by his government of society. And we can be in the world and not of it, we can have it and not hold it, hold it we can use it and not love it, and this is what He intended to do to get a people for Himself that were committed to Him. And to whom these other things have no power, no grip, no hold and that’s what the grace of God that brings salvation does teach us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts.
And then there is the second aspect, the past tense: I was saved from the penalty of sin. Now you either have to say I was saved from the penalty of sin or you’ll have to say I haven’t been saved from the penalty of sin. It’s either past or it isn’t in your experience. If you cannot remember a time when you were pardoned of the past and forgiven of the past then you haven’t been pardoned or forgiven of the past. Because there’s an event there is a moment in the experience of a person. You say, “Well, I don’t remember the time.” I’m not interested in that you should pinpoint the moment or the day; I just want you to be absolutely sure that you have been forgiven. You may say, “Well, I don’t know the moment it happened, but I know when I realized it had happened and that’s satisfactory.” So we’re not really interested in the perfecting your history we’re just trying to protect your future. And therefore, it’s extremely important that you should know that you were saved, you are saved from the penalty of sin. That you have trusted in the finished work of Christ that you are so trusting and that you have the assurance God gives that your past sins have all been carried by Jesus Christ. I was saved from the penalty of sin.
There is the present tense, “the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust.” We should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present evil world. “The Lord knoweth
them that are His. And, let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.” (II Tim. 2:19) “Thou shall call his name Jesus” said the angel, “for he shall save his people from their sins.” (Matt. 1:21) And if you have the grace of God that has brought salvation to you, then you are being saved from the power of sin.
Now, you may not have understood as well last week as you do this week, how you appropriate the victory of Christ, how you receive that deliverance from temptation and power and sin in your life. You may not have understood as well as some time in the past as you do as you will. Nevertheless, if you’d been born of God if you have partaken of the divine nature, there’s an intense desire in your heart to be delivered from the power of sin in your life. If you’ve partaken of His life, you could no more make peace with an ugly disposition, with a sinful habit, with that which grieves God and offends you. The Lord Jesus could make peace with the money changers in His Father’s temple. You have a desire to please Him and to glorify Him. Has that happened to you? I have been saved from the purpose of sinning, I was saved from the penalty of sin, it follows as the night the day you are being saved from the power of sin, and then looking for the blessed of hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and our Savior Jesus Christ that blessed hope. Is it a blessed hope? Well, it isn’t, if you have not been saved from the purpose of sin, and you do not have certain assurance that you have been saved from the penalty of sin, and you are not being saved from the power of sin, I don’t see how could it be called a blessed hope.
But if the grace of God has brought salvation and you’ve been taught to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. You’ve been taught to live soberly and righteously and godly and you are looking for what has now become the blessed Hope. Has this happened to you? This is what this text is all about to give you a yardstick by which you can measure yourself in relation to salvation. Has the grace of God brought salvation? If there is the slightest question in your mind about it, it’s a matter of utmost wisdom for you to make absolutely certain. But perhaps as I speak you say, “This is true. This is true in my life but I am concerned about my son, I am disturbed about my daughter, oh my grandchildren, my nieces, my nephews, they claim to be saved, but it’s so different.” Well, there’s not one salvation for your generation and another for theirs. “The grace of God that brings salvation teaches” everyone the same thing. And if those who name the name of Christ had not been so taught, there isn’t very good reason to think the grace of God has brought salvation. We must be honest perhaps just considering this word will teach you how to pray for your family and your friends. Because you know that everyone talking about heaven isn’t going there. Just because someone has gone through ritual of going to a prayer room or signing a card or answering some questions doesn’t it mean they’re Christian, not at all. But “the grace of God that brings salvation” has certain hallmarks of genuineness this is what we are so concerned about knowing the Word, that we may know how to deal with people.
I read years ago the diary of David Brainerd1 as it was edited, not the one that Moody Bible Institute put out which is very fine but it’s quite shortened, the one that I saw was old copy the complete diary as it was edited by and put out by Jonathan Edwards2 the father in law David Brainerd. In there he tells, David Brainerd, about a Lord’s Day when he came to a group of Indians in southern New Jersey that had been greatly persecuted, pressed. And he spoke to them from the consolations in Isaiah “comfort ye comfort ye my people,” (Isa. 40:1) and he said when he finished preaching to his amazement 11 of the company testify to faith in Christ. That night he was...before retiring he said that he thanked God for having brought these people with a testimony of life in Christ, but instead of his having joy he said as I sought to express my thanks my words turn to ashes in my mouth and I thought could it be that these who were without Christ had mistaken the comforts of belonging to people to the people of God as theirs before they had met Christ. So said he, “I resolve on the morrow I would see them each personally and test whether or not they had grounds for good hope in Christ.” The next day’s diary said, “Alas, today I have gone from hut to hut and talk to the 11, my worst fears were realized of the 11 who had on the day of yesterday justified through faith in Christ, only one had grounds for assurance. It was my duty my melancholy duty to bring them face-to-face to the clear terms of the gospel and disabuse their minds of their false assurance.” Then said he, “Alas, what if it had been that I had died before I could rectify my unskillful labor and these had died in their sins in the lake of fire. They would have risen and
1 David Brainerd (1718-1747) A missionary to the American Indians in New York, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania. 2 Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) A Christian preacher. America's most important and original philosophical theologian.
curse me as an unskillful unworthy labour of Jesus Christ, because I had deceived them about the most important thing in all the world their souls.”
Oh, I think it would be well if we had that kind of concern again. The only person in the universe that has the right to tell our soul we’re saved is the God that saved it. He is the spirit of adoption and how sad it is that we can so lightly usurp the sovereign prerogatives of the Holy Ghost and think nothing of it, when it is His Spirit who is to bear witness with our spirit we are born of God. We do well to be equipped in bringing to those who are dear and precious to us the Word of God that they may test and measure themselves by that word and not rest on the light presumptions that some may have given, but to bring them back again. What does “the grace of God teach, if the grace of God has brought salvation?” We have been taught to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. We’ve been taught to live soberly, righteously, godly in this present evil world, looking for that blessed hope. That’s what the grace of God brings. That’s what the grace of God teaches. Well why? Why is God so particular? Because the Great God and Savior “Jesus Christ gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people.”
Peculiar, that’s a strange word. Pecunier is its root. Purchased is its meaning. That he might purify unto himself a purchased people who are zealoust of good works. Our great God and Savior Jesus Christ gave Himself for us, nothing less than this. He left His Father’s home, identified Himself with us, took upon Himself our form and likeness, tested, tempted, tried and every way in matter that we might be yet without sin and then to give Himself. It was as though He were like Samson had been a slave. Samson had given himself repeatedly until he was bound as we. And Samson, as one has pointed out, he was blinded by sin and bound by sin grinding in sin, so are we, slaves. And it’s in this kind of slavery that we were held over of our own consent in our own chose. The Lord Jesus came to the market place where we were held and said what would it cost to redeem him to redeem you and you and me? And the answer you must give yourself.
And so the Lord Jesus gave Himself as we pointed out to be tested, to be tempted, and to be tried. And then to reach out and draw you to Himself become what you were laden with your guilt and in the Father’s eyes becomes as you were. Whatever you had done it was in the Father’s eyes in His as though He had done it. You know the names that would apply to you. The innocence, sinless, infinitely, holy Son of God was prepared out of love for you to be everything that you were. He was made to be sin for you, for me. He gave Himself for us that He might redeem us.
There are four words we are told by the Scofield notes that are translated redeem. The first one means to buy in the market place, the second means to buy out of the market place, the third means to loose, and the fourth means to permanently set free never to be forced back into bondage again. And that’s what Christ did. He bought you with Himself. He gave Himself for you that He might buy you. There with His own poured out life. That He might buy you out of this bondage. That He might lose you from this bondage. Permanently setting you free. Never that you should be forced back again into bondage.
Now that’s the testimony. The great God and Savior Jesus Christ gave Himself for you that He might redeem you. Now in the light of this, in the light of all that’s been said here in this text, measuring your own heart, do you not see two things, one to make absolutely certain for yourself that your relationship is sound and real and genuine, not spurious. Secondly, in everyone with whom you deal, everyone to whom you bring testimony to make absolutely certain that they received salvation from God and not presumption from you. Some have said, “What do you do differently now than you used to do in other days?” Well, I think it’s this, we tell people how holy God is and how sinful they are. We tell them what God did for them in the person of Christ. And then we tell them what they must do. Then we say now when you’ve done toward Christ what you must do, repent and receive Him as your Lord and Savior. You will know you are saved. And when you know, you come and tell me. You tell me.
Last year when I was here, I shared with you that may have been at the same week. Oh, I am sure many of you were not, experience in my own home, brings this into focus. For several years, some seven years I have been at Harvey Cedars Bible Conference in Long Beach Island, New Jersey on just the week ending on Labor Day, where I will be again this year. Four years ago, I took my son both sons with me. Son James was then had completed his junior year was going into his senior year in high school. He had been with me there the pervious summer. This particular occasion, his brother had left and he and I had Labor Day afternoon and the following day together. Late that second day we were nearing our home in the Northern Catskills, I had
been driving. Turned off route 23 to go up the road toward our home and as we turned, Jim said to me, “Dad, would pull over to the side of the road and stop a moment?” He had been quiet as I’ve said. I stopped and waited. And he said, “I don’t know how to say this dad. I don’t want to hurt you.” He said, “I’ve listen to you last week, last year the same week, and again this year.” He said, “I know how much Jesus Christ means to you.” He said, “Dad, I can’t fool you any longer. I can’t deceive you any longer.” He said, “I’m not a Christian.” He said, “Jesus Christ is just a word to me. I know I’ve tried. I’ve tried my best, but nothing comes of it. I don’t know if there is a God. I don’t know if the Bible is true. I don’t know anything, Dad.” He said, “I just can’t have you going on thinking that I am a Christian, when I know I’m not.” Well, I prayed. Waited for a moment, and said, “Jim, do you know the plan of salvation?” “Oh sure, I know that. You remember when I was 12 I when forward in the Tabernacle and I professed to be saved.” He said, “In two weeks, I knew nothing had happened, nothing had happened. I’ve just being feeling so ashamed of myself ever since to think that I was fooling you and mother. I can’t go on that way. I can’t start school this year that way.” I said, “Jim, you know the plan of salvation.” He said, “Yeah, I know.” I said, “Jim, Jesus Christ died to save lost people, some day you’re going to realize how lost you are and when you do since you know the plan of salvation then you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and your Savior. And when you do, He will save you and you will know you’re a Christian. Jim, there is just one thing, I want you to promise me that when Jesus Christ the Savior, you’ll come from wherever (I am) you are to where I am, if you can and tell me. I want to hear it from you. But,” I said, “I’m never going to bring the subject up again. Any time you want to talk about it that will be fine. But I’m not going to raise the subject again. Unless you wish to talk about it. Why, I’ll just pray for you every day. It’ll be between you and Him.”
Well, I prayed. We went back home, we went on home. I told my wife. She and I covenanted to pray for him. And he never brought it up again. I thought he would. Went through that school year, never mentioned it. Never mentioned once. He stayed home and worked staying at home that summer. And that was his senior year getting ready to go to college. I could tell how anxious he was getting to go to college. He had been a noble lad. Such an encouragement and help to us. Not one thing we could criticize. He respected us and so helpful in the home. I being away a great deal, my wife depended upon him. He never once let her down. She and I knew and he knew, we never mentioned it to the family. Just waited that was between him and the Lord. He went to college, a secular college, through Ag school at Cornell University. One day, my older boy was a senior at the same school and talked to his mother on the phone and said, “Gee, mom Jim is getting kind of wild. Should I talk to him?” She said, “No, no son. Don’t say anything to him, just pray for him. I think he is fighting a battle. We understand. He’s talked, we know.”
Well, what could we do? I was ministering to other people’s sons and praying for mine. Knowing that I had to let him go, because it’s “the grace of God that brings salvation” not a concerned parent. I can’t bring, it as much as I love it. It has to come from God.
I came home. I had been on a trip. I came into the yard and there was car in the yard I didn’t recognize. I came in and there was Jim and Gene Chase, a boy from school. And I said, “Hey, what are you fellows doing here?” “Oh, we just came home.” We visited an hour or so and it was quite late. I had been very busy and tried, “You’ll excuse me, and I have got to get some rest.” I started toward our room, “Dad?” Jim had followed me. We were in the dining room. I said, “Yeah?” He said, “Could you sit down and talk to me for a minute?” “Sure.” We sat down by the dining room table. He said, “Dad, do you remember our conversation by the side of the road? A year ago, last September?” I said, “Yes, Jim.” “We’ve never talked about since.” I said, “No. We thought all about it. I’ve been praying for you every day.” He said, “I know. So has mother.” He said, “Dad, I’ve gone to Cornell and I found out what you met. Someday I’d find out how lost I was.” He said, “I’ve done the things that I thought would be so much fun and I could hardly wait to do it.” He said, “Dad, I’m afraid. I’m afraid of me. I’ve been afraid of what’d I do,” He said. “Gene talked to me a couple of times and two weeks ago, a week ago last Wednesday he asked me to go to prayer meeting with him. And I went just so he would talk to me. And then last Wednesday night, he asked me go to prayer meeting again. I didn’t get much out of prayer meeting, but I talked to Gene in his car till about midnight, a little after.” He said, “I went to my room. I tried to go to sleep.” He said, “I couldn’t sleep.” He said, “Dad, somewhere in the morning, I suppose between 2 or 3 o’clock, I had to get out of bed and I had to ask Jesus Christ to come into my heart. To save me.” He said, “He did. He did. And I just came home and I got to leave at 7 in the morning to get back. But you remember I told that when Christ had come in and I knew I was saved, I would come and tell you. That’s why I had Gene bring me home tonight.” “I just had to tell you. I just
had to tell you.” “The grace of God that brings salvation” has to come from Him, not from pastors and preachers and teachers. It is “the grace of God that brings salvation.” Has “the grace of God that brought salvation” to your heart? Has He? Perhaps before we close this week.
* Reference such as: Delivered at Summit Grove Camp, New Freedom, Pennsylvania on Sunday Evening, 1970 by Paris W. Reidhead, Pastor. ©PRBTMI 1970
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Paris Reidhead (1919 - 1992)
Was a Christian missionary, teacher, writer, and advocate of economic development in impoverished nations. A spiritual crisis during this period—as he described two decades later in what is probably his best-known recorded teaching, "Ten Shekels and a Shirt"--left Reidhead with the conviction that much of evangelicalism had adopted utilitarian and humanistic philosophies contradictory to Biblical teaching. The end of all being, he came to believe, was not the happiness of man, but the glorification of God. This theme would recur throughout his later teaching.Since Mr. Reidhead's death in 1992, Bible Teaching Ministries, Inc. continues under the leadership of his wife, Marjorie, and daughter, Virginia Teitt, a dedicated Board, and the many people who have donated time and talent after being changed by God’s Word through this message. The message of the Gospel is reaching an ever-widening audience all over the world.