(Titus - Part 26): The Christian and Good Works Ii — A.W. Tozer

Scripture That Both Hopes and Fears

Pilgrim's Progress, the Christian is given certain information, instruction by one of the characters, the evangelist or someone else, and he says, these things do make me both hope and fear, and I feel the same way when I come to the Bible, particularly the writings of Paul or the sayings of Jesus.

They do make me both to hope and to fear. They both encourage me and make me ashamed. I am ashamed, for instance, that the man Paul in prison could write a letter, a brief letter, I think probably, well, it would easily go on two typewritten pages, and yet pack it so full of truth that it takes me weeks to go over it, and then I don't hope to get everything that's there.

“Good and Profitable Unto Men” in Titus

For instance, this morning, in the third chapter of Titus, for that's the book I have been preaching from in the mornings, as you know, and to which I now refer, the third chapter of Titus, the eighth verse, there is a little line in a saying which he simply threw in, Paul just threw that in.

If anything that's inspired can be said to be thrown in, I do not mean to slight what he said, I only mean to say that to him this obviously wasn't a critically important thing, and yet I find that I can't get by it, I have to preach a whole sermon on it.

Here are the words. These things are good and profitable under man. Now Paul, I say, put that in as a kind of salty saying, and yet it gives me material for a whole talk. That's humiliating to me, to know that the man of God, as he was inspired by the Holy Ghost, can put into a few words that which it takes me a whole sermon to fathom.

Well, here we have the saying, these things are good and profitable under man. Now what things? Possibly these things, that men might be careful to maintain good works, but more likely, all these things, from chapter 2, verse 1 on, where Paul says, speak thou the things which become sound doctrine for these things.

These things are good and profitable under man. He said that aged men were to live gravely and temperately and patiently. Aged women were to live and become of holiness. Young women were to be sober, discreet keepers at home, good, obedient.

Young men were to be sober-minded, and that workmen were to work as Christians, and that all down he tells us how we're to live. And then says we're to be subject unto principalities and powers and obey magistrates.

Then he says, and then another thing I want you to keep saying is, that everybody that believes in God should be careful to maintain good works. And then sort of adds it up at the bottom, because these things are good and profitable under man.

The Meaning of “Good”

I know that you don't want a lesson in semantics, nor do you want a lesson in English, but let's look a minute at that word good. These things are good. The word good has a long list of meanings in the average dictionary, because it's one of those workhorse words that you can get on and write any time, because it just means so many things.

But here, the thought of morality is not present. When he says these things are good, he doesn't mean these things are morally good, virtuous. They are all right, I suppose, if things can be, but that isn't what he means.

What he means is these things are valuable to you. These things are to your advantage and profit. That's what he means by good. You'll find exactly the same Greek word we have in our English, but the same original word where it says some fell into good ground.

Now, good ground wasn't ground morally good, virtuous. A hunk of earth can't be morally good. A turned-over sod can't be virtuous. But it means valuable and profitable. There is soil, so work out that you can plant something in it, and it will either not come up at all, or if it does, it will be a scrub and it will produce practically no fruit at all.

There's other ground. You can see it as you go, say, take a train here and go through Indiana and Ohio, and as you go through, you see the great black fields. Now, those fields are originally buffalo walls, probably, and the buffaloes beat with their hooves over the centuries down into the ground.

They reeds and rashes and grass and weeds until it's literally alive with power and fruitfulness. The result is they can grow almost anything over there. The great truck farms, that's where at least one of the places where we get our onions and lettuce and tomatoes that we serve on our tables all over the United States.

That's good ground, although it's not morally good. The idea of virtue isn't there. Then we say, bring us forth good fruit. There are trees that bring forth fruit that can be eaten, good fruit, profitable fruit.

Then there are trees that bring forth only lumpy, small, sour, wormy fruit that's no good. And we have the same, where Peter said, Lord, it is good for us to be here. He didn't mean this is a morally holy place.

He meant it's advantageous. It's a good thing for us. This is a great place to be. Now, with that definition, I've gone way around Robin Hood's celebrated barn to get to the meaning, and now let's apply that meaning a little.

God’s Goodness in Ordinary Benefits

Say, suppose there's a sick man, and the doctor says to him now, you take this treatment. It won't be pleasant, but it'll be good for you. You'll be well in ten days. That is a good thing. It's good in the sense that it is advantageous.

It's profitable to him. You'll get well if you take it. We say to a starving child, here, eat this. This will be good for you. The child eats it. It nourishes the little body, and pretty soon the eyes begin to shine again, and the color come back into the face.

The good food, that is advantageous, profitable food, has made the little one healthy again. We say to an intelligent young man, it is good for you that you should finish high school, and he comes around again and says, now I'm finished high school, what shall I do?

And we say, well, you're intelligent, I believe you're a college materialist, it's good for you. Go on, go on to school and learn. We mean not that the college is going to be a morally good place, although it should be that certainly true, but we mean if you study certain subjects, they'll profit you.

So that's what Paul meant when he said these things are good and profitable unto many. In other words, God always has the good and the profit of people in mind. If you could just put that down, and after you've heard that, then if we dismiss and you go home, if you'll remember that and take that with you and hold that as a tenet of your faith, it will help you in this wicked old world.

Almost everybody that comes to us comes for their own profit. They come to you, and these things are good and profitable unto them. Somebody comes to your door selling you something, and it's because if he can make a sale, it'll be good and profitable unto him.

But he's not speaking about you. It is so with everything. They sing anthems about cigarettes now, and that's because it's good and profitable unto the man who is selling the cigarettes. That it gives the man who smokes it lung cancer, that means nothing to them.

He'll have a son who'll be ready by the time the old man dies of lung cancer. He'll have a son whom he's taught to smoke the dirty thing, and he'll be, and his family will be good. They know it's good and profitable unto them.

But it's wonderful to hear it turned around and to hear it said, God always thinks of that which is good and profitable unto us. That when God approaches us with an exhortation, a command, he never comes saying, this will be good for me.

But this is good for you. This will be good for you. The whole book of God is like that. When we rise to the everlasting, when we rise to the eternal, how beautiful and how solemn it all is. For that sick man, though he take that treatment and get well, he'll later die, notwithstanding.

And if the starving child eats the food and gets its health back, it will die after a while, too. The student will wither away and cease to need the learning that he, with such great pain, managed to get at the college or university.

So that's only for time. We say, go ahead, eat, drink, take care of yourself, learn, read, think. These are good and profitable things. But we realize that we're thinking in time and talking in time. These things are good and profitable for time.

But when God speaks to a man, he says, these things I say to you are good and profitable to you forever. God always thinks in terms of eternity and thinks forever. Isn't it a solemn and a wonderful thought that you have in your bosom that which time can't wear out?

Isn't it a wonderful that you have in your breast that which the passing of the centuries cannot diminish or that cannot go old with the passing of the years? One of these times, when people get back and we're settled again, we're in our three worst Sundays of the year, but when we get around that we'll have our people with us, I'm going to start a series, oh, I'm going to call it A Journey into God.

But then before I get to that, I want to preach a sermon called The Space Age Seen from Above. Now, I've heard enough about this space age, and I can only take things so long. And I've been kicked around enough about this space age deal, and I'm going to reply now.

The Space Age Seen from Above

Now, Christian's going to reply, what about this space age business? And I'm going to think from the throne down. And when you think from the throne down, brother, you're not the slightest bit worried about vanguards or any of the rest.

If they blow up or go up, it makes no difference. Because you're thinking from the throne down. But I won't preach my sermon, I'll wait for the time. Now, think about the eternal soul of man. Here he is, what's space to that man?

What's time to that man? What's space or time to that man? What's matter to that man? What's motion and law and attraction and gravitational pull and the zones of radiation? An empty space, what's that to the man?

He got all mad, he made him out of a different material altogether. He lives differently, he's of another matter altogether. Nothing to him. So, God says now here, I've given you that which cannot wither, which cannot die, which cannot cease to be at any rate.

And what shall it profit you to gain the whole world and lose your soul? God made the earth and he made man upon it. And he wills the good of that man. God wills, vigorously, actively wills the good of that man.

If we could get a hold of a half a dozen great ideas, and they begin to then get a hold of us, it would change our whole outlook. One is that God is not passive and sluggish, waiting to be stimulated.

But that God is the active aggressor, waiting for us to recognize him. If we could only see that, that God wills actively and aggressively my highest good for the longest time. And he says these things are good and profitable.

He means this will be advantageous to you while the ages roll. This will profit you as long as the stars burn. And when I've wiped them out as a child, wiped out a picture off a blackboard, you'll still be there eternally profiting by these things.

Now, God means the fullest development of my soul, and he makes the appropriate preparation for it beyond death and beyond the resurrection and in the heaven above and in the fellowship of God forever.

Accepting God’s Will as Good

Now, good and profitable. I think these words could be written over everything that God ever said or did in his relation to man. This is good and profitable for you. God's children would only find that out and stop fighting.

You know, there's a little saying in the world, they say, don't fight it. Sort of cute little saying people have. Well, don't fight it. And so they just give up to the deal, whatever it happens to be.

But if we could only remember that the will of God is not something to fight, but something to accept joyously, it would change our whole lives. When God made the garden, he made Eden, he made a garden eastward in Eden, and he said there to the man, now this is good and profitable for you.

And he put the man in there and said, this is good and profitable. And he made certain fruits and he said, now these are all for you. Look at them hanging there, all of these trees. Here's one, don't bother with that because for my own reasons I've proscribed that.

But all the rest of the garden is yours. And these things are good and profitable for you. And then when man had disobeyed and sinned, God cast him out of the garden. And why? Because it was good and profitable for him that he should not remain in the garden, each of the trees that would fix him like a photograph plate so that he never could change.

God put the man out where he could be fluid and malleable and changeable so God could get hold of him and change him back from his sinful state, back to holiness. So God drove him out of the garden. And of course man mourned his trip out of the garden.

Milton shows Adam and Eve hand in hand walking away from the gate of the garden looking pensively back over their shoulder at what had once been their happy home. And then hand in hand they went out into the world.

But it was good and profitable for them that they should. That's always God's motto, this is good for you, this is profitable for you. And then come all down to the scriptures when God instituted sacrifice and redemption.

He said here, slay this animal, put the blood on the altar, confess your sins for that's good and that's profitable for you. And later on when the time came that Mary as the little song says had a baby and they named his name Jesus all across the world.

God wrote this is good and profitable for you, this is good and profitable and when Jesus opened his mouth and taught them it was to their good and their profit. And when he died on the cross, if they had eyes to see they could have seen written in letters of fire, this is good and profitable for all men.

For God means it always to be so. It is the devil's calumny, the devil's libel that God looks upon men seeking to find fault and to punish and to harm. The devil brought that dirty scandalous libel to ease and got her to sin.

And he's been telling every one of these children from that hour to this. There sits God on the throne, the great bully. And you're weak and helpless and short-lived and he's got eternity to throw his weight around.

And so they turned the minds of people against God, forgetting that God gave man free will and said this is good and profitable for you. God gave man the world and said it's good and profitable for you.

God sent his son to die and raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand and said this is for your profit, this is for your good. If we could only remember that and know that all we've got thinking of our good and our profit.

The Father’s Good Gifts

Let's suppose it's a little baby. Let's think it's a little baby. There he lies, the sheep. There he lies, face down, cheeks red, hair tousled, one sock kicked off and the other is still on. Indeed, restful, healthy slumber.

And the parents pass by and tiptoe in and see. What do they think about? And they go out again smiling. Are they going to plan how they can get him? How they can harm him? Are they going to sit out in the living room and plan thoughts and hindrances they can put in his way?

Are they going to teach him evil? Harm him? No, you know better than that. Every father that's normal, they have normal few, I can't tell you about them. But every normal father thinks about his family.

Every normal father. Well, I remember this wasn't a spiritual thing to do, but it was a perfectly normal thing to do. If I had been more spiritual, I wouldn't have done it. But being just where I was, I did it and it was perfectly normal.

I used to think of my six boys. And I used to think if I should die or something should happen to me, what would happen to them? And I used to wake up in a state of, way back there. I got over it, but it was normal.

I was thinking of the welfare of those boys. And every normal father or every normal mother thinks only of the welfare of their children. And if ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more will your heavenly father give good things to those that ask him?

Because God is aggressively determined that he will give you that which is good for you, that which will profit you the longest time. So, God sends these things to us. The promises, the warnings, the exhortations.

There they are. Some of them are pretty severe. But if you'll notice and read the fine print, you'll see there, this is good for you, this is profitable for you. And then when it comes to the things we don't like, sorrows and pain and loss and tribulations, nobody ever loved them yet.

Nobody ever rushed headlong into pain deliberately yet. Even the man who takes a gun and puts it to his temple knows he's going to cause himself sharp pain, but it'll only be for an instant and then his pain will be over, so he thinks.

So he's trying to escape pain, not trying to run into it. And yet, when God allows them to come, he says, this is good for you. And I'm thinking of your problem. You ever teach, you ever have anybody in your family take piano lessons?

Pain, Discipline, and the Christian Life

You know, the easiest thing in the world is to get them to start, and the hardest thing is to keep them at it. You know that? The easiest thing in the world is to romance. Ooh, I'm going to take piano.

So off they go. And for the first week, you can hardly get them loose from the piano. Second week, they taper off. Third week, you have to keep reminding them. Fourth week, threatening them. And then after that, if you've got good sense, you call the whole thing off.

Because, you know, if you have to drive them to the piano, they'll never be Horowitz anyway. Well, the point I'm trying to make is that God has to make us do something, sort of. I know we're free will, but sometimes the Lord puts a little pressure on us.

And when we look up into his face questioningly, he says, now this is good for you. This is profitable for you. When I was a small boy, I used to have the unfortunate habit of picking apples off the tree before they were ripe and eating them, with the result that you can easily guess, but which I, for certain reasons, am not going to go into.

And, of course, I'd be sick. I'd be in bed, cramped and miserable, and my mother would go to the doctor. Now, personally, I think that probably the doctor gave the same powder. They tasted the same and looked the same, no matter what I had for the first 14 years of my life.

The same doctor brought me into the world, fed me this white powder, and I think it probably was the same stuff, but at least the point was my mother thought it was good for me, and so she made me take it.

It was bitter. The idea in that day was the worse it tasted, the better it would be for you. I think that that probably was taught in the medical school at that time. Now, I don't know whether that's true, but I do know this, that sometimes God gives you bitter medicine and you might just as well face up to it.

This modern notion that Christianity is one huge Sunday school picnic with a swim thrown in. It's all wrong, my brethren. It's all wrong. The Christian life is a reasonably happy life, and if you live close to God, a very happy life, but a life shot through and through with sorrows and hardships and pains and tribulations.

And these sorrows and tribulations are not God's highest will, for there are not going to be any of them in heaven, but in this mixed-up world where we are now and with us in the shape we are, they're necessary to us.

So, the Lord gives us the bitter medicine and says, now this is good for you. This will be good for you. Take it and thank me for it. Good for you. He says, good work, good work. That God's people should maintain good work.

This is good for you. Do it, do it. I want to ask a couple of questions and then I'm going to close. I want to ask, why is it that it's so hard to get people to do the things that are good for them and so easy to get them to do what's sweet and pleasurable for them, whether it's good for them or not?

I wonder why. Why is it hard to get people to do the things that are good for them? Why is it so easy to get people to do the things they like to do, even though they know they're not good for them? Why is it that when it's a choice between the flesh and what's good for us, 97 times out of 100 Christians will choose the flesh?

Why is it when God gives us a choice between time and eternity, the vast, overwhelming number of people will choose time? Let me give you an example of what a fool a man can be. Choosing the immediate, short-range profit instead of the long-range profit.

Choosing Eternal Benefits Over Immediate Pleasure

I came out of the United States Army as a young man. The United States government at that time had, on every one of their men, they had a $10 ,000 insurance policy. One day I got a letter from the government, it was all amended, and the letter said this.

Now you can take your choice. We will give you, I think it was $150, veteran benefits, now in cash, or we will give you your paid-up policy for life. We'll just hand it to you, you don't have to pay a dime on it, it's yours.

If you live to be 108, when you die, your relatives will get $10 ,000 cash. I was a young, struggling preacher in my first pastorate, getting about $3 .48 a week as a salary. I was superintendent of Sunday school, janitor, chairman of the board, and was a bore, and was just generally everything.

What I didn't do, my wife did the rest. And you know what I took? I took the short-range $150 instead of the $10 ,000 I might have had if the government had paid my sentence. Now that's an illustration.

God says now you can have your choice. Time or eternity, get the short-range thing or take the long-range thing, wait for it. Every time we take the short-range pleasure and lose the long-range benefit.

Why is it when it's a choice between God and the flesh, every time the flesh wins and God loses? Why is it when God runs on a ticket against flesh, why must always it be that the flesh defeats God in the voting?

Humanity’s Fallen Nature and the Choice of the Flesh

It's because we're so badly fallen. It's because we're so deeply and incurably sinful. And it's because only now and again does God find one bold enough and faithful enough that he'll turn short-range benefits and take the long-range profit.

Moses was one. He despised the court of Pharaoh that he might claim the long-range promises of God. Go to the 11th and Hebrews and you'll see it. A long list of them. Spurned short-range benefits and took eternity.

A long, long list that God gives to men. Always remember God gives you choices and then says now this isn't so good, but this is good and profitable unto you. For God's sake, my brethren, let's learn to take the thing that's good for us rather than the thing we like.

Let's learn to suffer it out and batter it through. People are suffering in this city of Chicago tragically and won't get one little bit of blessing out of it. Old Andrew Murray said it's shocking to think how much suffering some of God's people can do to not profit by it.

I hear and see and meet many people whom I talk every week almost. I have interviews in which people pour their sorrows and griefs out to me. And they, without seeking it, get sorrows and tribulations and hardships that Christians don't have and won't take.

And if God offered it to them, they wouldn't accept it. They'd escape it and plow around it to get away from it. Too bad. Who's done this? I think an enemy has done this and I think I know his name. I think I know his name.

The Devil’s Short-Term Counterfeit

It's an enemy. He has done this. The devil has done this. That evil one who hates us. Always remember if it's the world or the flesh and the devil and they make a proposition, always remember it's for your pleasure for a short run.

And God sets over against that something that isn't so pleasant but that's for your good and your profit while the ages hold. Young people, learn to choose the hard way if it's God's way. For it's good and profitable unto you.

Preparing for Eternity Through God’s Discipline

You can start in the beginning. God made the heaven and the earth and end up with even so come quickly Lord Jesus. Amen. And all the way through this is good for you and profitable unto you. I recommend you go into this and let it slice you and chew you and grind you and soften you and prepare you for eternity.

Because you're going there one of these days. You're going there either having lived a life of artful dodging of the cross, artful escaping of tribulation the easy fleshly way. Or you're going there like the Christian on his road to the celestial city wearing his armor and carrying his sword and with his roll under his arm ready to face any dragons or lions or devils that are in the way.

Always remember whatever the devil says if God speaks it's good for you. And when God speaks it's good for you. Good and profitable for you. So if you don't like to do it, do it anyway and thank him. Don't grumble, don't complain.

Don't pull a poor mouth and go through life grooming. Thank him for everything and say Father this isn't particularly enjoyable but I enjoy it anyway. Knowing that you sent it and it's good and it's profitable for me.

Amen.