Truth: The Mother of Godliness

Driving home: All the heart produces of itself are the thorns and the nettles and the weeds of sin.

Compares a well-arranged vegetable garden, which requires cultivation and sowing, to the human heart. Just as a garden doesn't grow itself, godliness doesn't grow naturally from the 'unblessed, Adamic soil' of the heart, which naturally produces 'thorns and nettles and weeds of sin'.

Just as surely as you will never find a fruitful, well-arranged vegetable garden growing out of a dry, cracked, parched, weed-infested, uncultivated, un-sown, and un-nurtured plot of ground. If you go to someone's backyard and there see a lovely garden, and everything is neatly arranged in the various rows and well-weeded, you know that that didn't just happen, that there was some kind of native power in that particular soil. To give birth to lovely tomato plants and broccoli plants and zucchini plants and all of the rest, somebody's been at work. Nature didn't produce that, for since the eart...

16:25 - 17:36 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Given the nature of error, godliness does not appear as the child of error or of ignorance.

Compares error to 'rancid, putrid, infectious and diseased food' for the soul. Just as doctored-up rancid food can taste good but still make one sick or kill, error can be palatable but has no power to convey spiritual health.

Not by the clear, convincing, powerful proclamation of truth, if necessary, even such a polemic form as to show error in its true light. You find this in chapter 2 and verse 1. Speak thou the things which befit the sound or the healthy doctrine, indicating that there is another kind of teaching that is not sound or helpful, it is like rancid, putrid, infectious and diseased food. That's what error is.

24:35 - 25:14 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not have a subtle aversion to the negative, as biblical thinking requires acknowledging both positive and negative truths.

Quotes A.W. Tozer's response to being told he was 'too negative.' Tozer explained that life is made of negative and positive (inhaling oxygen, exhaling poison), and a man determined to be wholly positive in breathing is soon dead, illustrating the need for biblical balance in confronting error.

I'll never forget old Dr. Tozer taking on those who came to him and said, Dr. Tozer, you're too negative. Be positive. Be positive.

27:05 - 27:12 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The sermon details the elder's responsibility (Titus 1:5, 9) to preserve truth and expose error, reproving sharply so that believers may be 'sound in the faith.' This concern is…

Compares a mother who would never allow rancid food to be served to her children to a godly overseer who will not allow 'rancid spiritual food' (error) to be served to his spiritual children, emphasizing the protective role of leadership regarding truth.

It's recognizing that as surely as no mother in this place would allow any relative in the house to serve up rancid food to her children so no godly overseer will allow rancid spiritual food to be served to his spiritual children. Truth and truth alone is the mother of godliness. Now you see then this concern of the apostle for the maintenance of pure doctrine is not simply a doctrinaire spirit manifesting itself. It is not an overly fastidious and persnickety concern of a theological nitpicker. This is not a crotchety old man who has become a heresy hunter. He recognizes that practical godlin...

34:19 - 35:43 Read in full sermon

The point: Stand against the tide of ecumania, charismania, relativism, and subjectivism, recognizing that what you believe makes a difference.

Describes the historical divisions between Rome and Protestant denominations as a 'great wall of doctrine' raised by Luther and others. This metaphor is used to critique the charismatic movement's claim to unite people 'above the wall' through common experience, rather than through doctrinal truth.

We live in an age of ecumania when people say the only thing that matters is to come to some low, minimal, common denominator of indistinct commitment to nondescript statements that can mean anything to anyone who happens to be a little religious and let's all give ourselves to the togetherness orgy and come together in the midst of this ecumania. We live in an age in which the in thing is to say that well I have some distinctive convictions but yours are just as worthy of consideration as mine. And the whole climate of our age is against saying if this is truth then that is error. And if trut...

37:31 - 39:00 Read in full sermon

The point: Pray for a return to godliness in the nation, homes, and communities, and seek with sanctified wisdom to take appropriate steps to share the truth.

Quotes Pastor Ernie Reisinger's practical advice on evangelism, suggesting that even those who cannot directly approach individuals can write evangelistic letters or enclose tracts, highlighting that the problem is often a lack of conviction or love, not ability.

the most rapid right wing to the most woolly-headed left wing which alone will give birth to godliness but that truth cannot give birth to godliness until it impinges on men's minds and then upon their hearts and upon their affections and their wills by the power of the holy ghost but the holy ghost isn't going to speak it to them directly he's going to speak it through you and through me and therefore we have a solemn obligation to pray if indeed we are praying for a return to godliness in our nation in our homes in our communities in our neighborhoods it is truth and truth alone which gives ...

53:29 - 54:58 Read in full sermon