Titus, Introduction to the Epistle

Good morning. Everybody here okay? I want to show you a little book, and you can't buy one because the only place you can buy these books is in the city of Corinth in Greece. In fact, if you ever get to go to Corinth and come down from Athens and get ready to cross the little river that attaches to the Isthmus, which is the isle of the Isthmus of Corinth, there's a lot of shops right there before you cross the bridge, and every one of the shops have these books. And those are the only shops in the entire world where you can buy these books. I've attempted to buy them in several other places. Cannot find them. They will not send them. And the shop in Greece, every time you write them, they say, come see us. So I guess if you want to pick up a book, you've got to go to Greece and pick it up. There are two of these books. One is St. Paul in Greece, and the other one is St. John on Patmos. And they look exactly alike, and often times they get lost in my library and I have to hunt them down. They're the same color, same look-alike, but the only place you can buy them is in the city, just beyond the city of Corinth in Greece. Anyway, today we're going to be talking about the island of Crete. Because the island of Crete is the island that the Apostle Paul, during a shipwreck, planted a church. Actually, he was on a ship and was going down south of the island of Crete. You know, the island of Crete is actually in the Mediterranean. Now, you know there are two bodies of water on either side of Greece. On one side is the Aegean, and on the other side is the Adriatic. The Adriatic is toward Rome, the Aegean is toward Asia Minor. And you have the two seas, the Aegean on the eastern side, and the Adriatic on the western side. Yugoslavia and so forth, and then Rome, and then on the other side, Asia Minor and Greece, and all of the islands of the Grecian nation are there. And Crete is way down south. And actually, it's not in the Aegean Sea, it's actually in the Mediterranean. And it's down south below the Aegean, and as the Mediterranean turns, you have this island down there. It's just a hunk of rock down in the water. And it's quite a sizable island, and it has a lot of great history. And the Apostle Paul was traveling by ship, and they had a bit of a storm. And his ship had to put into a port on the southern part of the island of Crete. And he put into a port named Fair Haven. And it just so happened that while he was there, he was there for eight or ten days, a couple of weeks. And of course, the Apostle Paul always did what he always did. When he was there, he planted a church on the island of Crete. He started preaching, he had some converts, and some people there at Fair Haven became Christian. And the Apostle Paul planted a church on the island of Crete at Fair Haven. And then later on, some other churches. And then later on in Heraclius, the capital of Crete, he planted another church. And that's why Titus, his son like Timothy in the ministry to whom he writes this letter, that Brother Jimmy's going to start telling us about the letter next week, I'm going to tell you about how the letter came to be. And what the Apostle Paul was doing and what was happening on the island of Crete. And the island of Crete is quite an interesting place because it was a hopping off place during the time of the Roman Empire for all the galleons of the Roman Empire to stop and let the sailors and the infantry and the soldiers get off. And you know what happens when there are sailors and soldiers that are incarcerated in a ship for about two and a half months and they get to a place where there's a lot of things happening that you don't want to happen like women in booze. And they all come off the ship and that's what they do. And you know how those port cities are. Well, that's exactly how the port cities were on the island of Crete. Fair Haven's to the south, a couple of other small ports. And then the big port up the north, Herculon. But these ships put in all the time, Roman galleons, full of soldiers, full of sailors, been too long on the sea, came off, did what they did, tore up the city, had fights all over the place. And it was a terrible, terrible place to live when all these galleons would come in. And Titus is going to make mention of that and Paul will make mention of it to Titus in the book as we look through the book in a couple of weeks. Now, where has Paul been all this time? We know that he had been in house arrest until about 62 or 63 CE during the Christian era. He'd been in house arrest in Rome and of course we knew all what happened during that time. So about 62, 63, for some reason they could not convict, actually convict him because they had no real conviction for him. And you recall that when Paul was in Caesarea and he saw King Herod Agrippa and King Agrippa heard him on that day from Felix, who was the governor. And Felix let King Herod Agrippa and his girlfriend, who was his half-sister, by the way, listen to Paul. At the end of Paul's discussion there in Caesarea, King Agrippa said, this man has no reason to go to Rome. He has no reason. He is not guilty. And the King Agrippa, who was king of a portion of Israel, King Agrippa himself said he is not guilty. Why is he going to Rome? To which Felix answered him and said, because he has appealed to Caesar. Now, had Paul not appealed to Caesar, during this particular time he probably would have been freed and he would have been able to go wherever he pleased. But once as a Roman citizen you appeal to Caesar, you have to go. And the Roman Empire has to see to it that you get there. And so they were the ones who were going to give Paul the passage, ship passage, to come to Rome to see the Caesar. And that's what Paul was doing in Rome. That's why he was there in house arrest. That's why he was there until about 62. And again they looked at his case and guess what? They couldn't find anything to convict him about. Now, later on Nero is going to find something to convict him about. And eventually what Nero convicts him about is going to get his head. But right now Paul is a non-convicted prisoner. And so he is released. And when he is released, he and Silas and Dr. Luke and probably Timothy, perhaps Titus was part of it, I don't know. Titus you will find out as we go through the lesson today. Titus was a very close companion to the Apostle Paul as was Timothy. And these two young men were very closely related to the Apostle Paul in many things that he did. And so when Paul was released, he went to do a new mission strategy that the Apostle Paul had never done before. Now let me tell you what he was getting ready to do. He mentions it in the book of Romans. In the 28th chapter of the book of Romans. Now you kind of think back and think how far back was it that Paul wrote Romans? He wrote Romans sometime in the 50s. And this is 62. He wrote the book of Romans sometime around 54, 55. And this is 10 years later. And yet Paul is still thinking about what he was thinking about in the book of Romans. And you remember in the book of Romans, the last chapter, the Apostle Paul said, I am charging to come to see you soon on my way to Spain. Do you remember? Remember that passage? On my way to Spain. So Paul has already developed a mission strategy. Now he had already covered Galatia. He had already covered all of the Asia Minor. He had already covered Athens and Greece. He had already been through all of Macedonia. He had already gotten to Rome. The gospel was in all of these places. And now he is looking at Spain. And he has a strategy, folks. And the strategy is really kind of interesting when you look at it. The strategy includes three areas of the Mediterranean. The first area is western Mediterranean Spain. And so he is looking west. He is looking at Rome. He is looking at taking the gospel to Spain. And it sits over here. And the second one sits over here in Macedonia, which is on the western coast of the Aegean Sea. And so you have Spain over here. You have Macedonia over here. And Dalmatia over here. And in the middle you have Rome. And then down below you have these two points out here. And down below you have this island by the name of Crete. And so Paul actually drew a pyramid. And he was developing a pyramidic mission strategy to take the gospel to Spain, to Crete, and to Dalmatia. Which they had never had the gospel before. And this is what Paul developed in the book of Romans. Ten years ago. And had never really had an opportunity to fill it out. Because he was taking all the gospel to Asia Minor and to Athens, to Macedonia. And he was taking the gospel to other places and just didn't have time to take it. So now he's free. He's not charged. House arrest is over. He can leave Rome. And so now he's going to leave Rome, probably with Silas and Dr. Luke. Probably with Timothy and perhaps with Titus and some others. Because Titus was just about everywhere Paul went. In fact, as we look at his life a little bit, I'll tell you how he helped Paul. In fact, do you remember when Paul wanted to get this huge offering from the church in Corinth? In the second book of Corinthians? Or in the first and second book of Corinthians? And he was trying to get this huge offering for the poor saints in Jerusalem. Please say you remember that. Please say yes. Even if you don't remember it, please say yes. Please say yes, because you're going to have to remember it in a few minutes, okay? He was trying to pick up this huge offering for the poor saints in Jerusalem. And guess who he put over it as the administrator? Titus! Now that's how long Paul had known Titus. In fact, I can share with you that Titus was in Jerusalem with Paul at the council with James, the half-brother of Christ, who was the pastor of the church in Jerusalem. Titus had been with Paul as Timothy had for a long time. And Paul now is ready, since he is released, to do the triad, to do Spain, Crete, and Dalmatia. And he's looking at these places, and they're getting ready to take the gospel to the places where it had never been. In the middle of those three, here sits Rome. Italy. Right in the middle. Gospel's already in Italy. Rome's already had a book. It already got the gospel. He's going out beyond there. So therein lies what Paul is getting ready to do. He's getting ready to go to Spain. He's getting ready to go to Dalmatia, which is now present-day Yugoslavia. And he's getting ready to go to Crete. And he's getting ready to set up mission points in Dalmatia, in Crete, and in Spain. And he's planning to cover the entire western, central, and southern part of the Mediterranean Sea. That was his mission strategy. So, he was brilliant. The more I look at Paul, the more I study Paul, the more I realize how brilliant he really was. I mean, ten years ago, from this point, he had already said what he was going to do. I, in the book of Romans, must take the gospel to Spain. Remember? And so ten years ago, or thereabout, Paul had already developed this triad strategy, but because he was so busy over in Asia Minor, and in Macedonia, and all these other... Rome had become so Christianized because of the day of Pentecost. He had Rome, and Greece, and Asia Minor. He was really busy, and had not gotten a chance to get over here to Spain. Now he gets the chance. So, he's released. And he, probably with Silas, and with Dr. Luke, Timothy, and Titus, probably started this mission triad that they had developed, that they were going to do. And while they were out doing it, something very cataclysmic tragic happened in the city of Rome. They had a fire. And in 64, July 18, 64 CE, the city of Rome burned. History says that Nero set it on fire. Impossible, Nero was not in the city. Of course, he could have had it set on fire, but as far as him putting the match to it, he didn't do it. He was at his summer home when Rome began to burn. And he got word that it was burning in July 18 of 64. And so he came back from his summer home and found out that 14 districts were burning. And the city only had 14 districts. And they had to do something to get it out. They put it all out except four. Four districts did not burn. Ten burned. And it just so happened that the shanties where the Jews and the Christians were living were the ones that burned. Isn't that interesting? How some things can burn that other places don't burn. When they finally did get it put out, finally got it settled down, Nero, realizing that he had not constructed the city of Rome to make it where it would not burn that way, now had an opportunity to reconstruct the city of Rome and build it the way he wanted to build it, which is what he was wanting to do. And that's why many people think he had the fire set. He has the opportunity now to do it. And he did it. But at the same time, somebody had to take the blame for setting the city on fire. And so the most normal opportunity for blame was the jury. The Jews and the Christians. See, the Christians were part of the jury. The Jews and the Christians were together. And so Nero said, Uh-huh, that's who did it. The Jews and the Christians set it on fire. I'm going to blame them and I'm going to have them fight with animals in the big arena. And from 64 July C.E., Nero put a target on the back of every Jew and every Christian. Now, how good was information during those days? How quickly did the news pass around? It's kind of interesting. In the Agora in Athens, which is the big city place where you go to shop, it's a big city shopping center. In the Agora in Athens, and because Athens was a big ship building, and numbers of ships came into Athens every day. In the Agora, the first thing that people asked people who were coming from the port is the following. What's new? What's new? They didn't have internet. They didn't have telephones. They didn't have a telegraph. They didn't even have a good letter system. The mail was pretty good, but it was slow. It had to go by ship, or else it would have to go by donkey if it would get overland somewhere. The mail was pretty sorry. Although Rome had a good mail system, it was pretty sorry. And so when people got off a ship, the first thing everybody wanted to know is what's news? N-E-W-S. What's news? What's new? What's happening out there? And of course, when Paul and them were over in Spain, and Rome was over here, and news doesn't travel that well, Paul and his company probably had not heard that Rome had burned. Nor had they heard that Nero had put a target on the back of all the Christians. So, when they came back from Spain, they went to Dalmatia, they went to Crete, and they also went over to the place where Paul was generally staying, and that was at Troas. Do you remember where Troas was on the northern part of Asia Minor, where Paul went just before he crossed that little piece of sea, that little piece of Aegean Sea, when he went over to Philippi? Can you identify where Philippi is? Troas is just across the ocean, about 8 or 10 miles. And Paul was there in Troas. In fact, we think, from historical records of the Roman Empire, the Apostle Paul was arrested in the city of Troas. And Nero, because Paul was criminal unum eto, he was the number one criminal, and Nero knew if he could put the number one criminal of the Christian Church into prison, and if he could eventually kill him, then he would start his faith on doing away with Christianity and with Judaism. And so the number one criminal was in Troas. Paul and the missionary party, Silas, Timothy, Titus, and some of the others, had come to Troas, and they were there, and about 66, about 4 years, all of this is happening in a period of about 4 years, and about 4 years later, in 66 CE, Paul is arrested in Troas. In fact, if you go and read the scriptural account, it says that he left in haste, and he left his cloak, and he left his notes in Troas. And later on, do you remember what he told Timothy to gather for him, and bring to him in Rome? He said, Timothy, it's cold down in this dungeon. Bring me my cloak that I left in Troas. Remember? He wanted Timothy to bring his cloak. And he also wanted Timothy, he said, and bring my note. Now, he left his cloak and he left his notes, because they roughed him up and hurled him out of the city of Troas. They arrested him. And he had to leave everything quickly. Many people think he left his notes there for Timothy and Titus to bring later, because if the Roman Empire got those notes and could pick out the names of people in various and sundry cities where they had been, many of those people then would become criminal as well. So Paul probably left his notes on purpose, but not his jacket. He didn't mean to leave his cloak. But he left both. He was roughed up a bit, taken to Rome. This time, not house arrest. This time he was put in the Marentine prison, which was a dungeon. And in the Marentine prison, the dungeon, it was for enemies of the state who were awaiting execution. So when you were put in the Marentine prison, you're history. Eventually, you're going to be killed. And eventually, if you're a Roman, they're going to kill you by beheading you, because that was the most generous and sociable way to kill a Roman citizen. But if you were not a Roman citizen, if you were a Gentile, you had the wonderful privilege of being crucified, because that was the way they killed non-Roman citizens. So they had two means of execution. They would either come and kick the hell out of them by beheading them, which is for a Roman citizen, or by crucifixion. I have a book in my home about a road that they were building from Rome across the Italian Alps. And, of course, that road was being built by a number of non-Roman people. About 15,000 to 35,000 non-Romans were building that road across the Italian Alps going over into Switzerland. And they had a rebellion. And the whole of the road crew rebelled against the Roman Empire. And this book shows 2,900 crucifixion crosses on that road. They killed 2,900 of those people who rebelled against the road project, and they hung them all across. That was the way they did capital punishment for non-Roman citizens. And so Paul knew when he was put in the Marentine prison that he was going to be killed. Oh, by the way, this is where the book of 2 Timothy comes from. Paul, sometime around 66, will write the last piece of evidence that he writes, the book of Timothy, the second book, and he sends it to Timothy. And in this book, as you will see when Brother Jim and I get to it, the Apostle Paul says, I have won the race. I have finished the course. I'm tired. Therefore, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, and not for me only, but for all of those who love his appearing. That's the old man in the prison who's tired. He knows he's going to die. He's trying to get word to his young son about what it means to run the race and be faithful. And this is the last book that the Apostle Paul will write. Now Paul's arrested. In the meantime, during these trips in 62-66, Paul and Titus made a trip to Crete. And while they were in Crete, Paul went back to see the church that he had planted at Fair Havens. And while they were there, the scripture says, he left Titus in Crete. And he left him in Crete to become the pastor of the church, probably at Fair Havens, perhaps later on at Heraklion. But he left Titus on the island of Crete to do various and sundry things. To establish churches, to ordain elders, to identify bishops, and to get the organization and the administration of the church going on the island of Crete. And Paul left him there. In fact, in the book of Titus, in the very first chapter, the Apostle Paul will say to him, For this cause left I thee in Crete. And then he tells him why he left him there. To ordain elders, to set up bishops, to plant churches. This is why I left you on the island of Crete. And so Paul will tell him later on. But he leaves him on the island of Crete. Paul goes off, and then Paul is arrested, and Titus doesn't see Paul any longer. Now, who was Titus? Well, it's kind of interesting. Titus was a Gentile. Titus was not a Jew. He was a converted Gentile. And Titus came from... Titus was probably somewhere in Macedonia. And he was Gentile. And by birth, he says in Galatians 2.3, he was Gentile. He was converted to the ministry of Paul. Titus 1.4 says, And it looked like he was with Paul a lot. In fact, I told you that he was with Paul at the council in Jerusalem, when they went to talk about the Gentiles being saved, and that the gospel of Jesus Christ was being delivered to the Gentiles, and that Paul would be the minister of the gospel to the Gentiles, and the others would be to the Jews. That was the council in Jerusalem when they were trying to prove to them that the Gentiles were being saved and converted. Titus was with him then. Titus was with him in Corinth. Now, stop just a minute. Let me just do two or three things on my finger to help you understand. Paul's great ministry started when he began, actually, his first churches. His first churches were in Galatia, where he established churches from which Timothy came. Timothy was from Galatia. He was from Iconium Lystra in the little nation of Galatia, where Paul established the first churches. And then after that, Paul went over across from Troas to a little city called Philippi. And you know what happened in Philippi, and then down at Thessalonica, and then down at Berea, and then down at Athens, and then down at Corinth. All of this time, it appears that Titus is with Paul, because it says that Titus became the associate pastor of the church in Corinth with the apostle Paul. And when Paul was in Corinth, Titus was an associate with him and worked with him in the city of Corinth, writing the books that he wrote, the book to Rome, the book to the others. He wrote some books out of Corinth, 1 and 2 Corinthians later from Ephesus. And now Titus is very actively engaged in Corinth. In Corinth, he's trying to get the church to give this tremendously large offering to the poor saints in Jerusalem. In the meantime, Paul leaves Corinth after he writes the book of Romans. He leaves Corinth, and he goes up to Ephesus on Asia Minor across the Aegean Sea. And he becomes a pastor at the church in Ephesus. And while in Ephesus, he writes two books. He writes 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. Now, I don't want to bog your minds, but I want you to hear something. We know that there were four books to the Corinthians. We have two of them. Two of them appear to have been lost. And the reason we know that is there are some questions in our 1 Corinthians for which we have no answers. And in 2 Corinthians, there are answers for which we have no questions. Now, that's some kind of study in the Scripture that you don't want to take part in, okay? Because you have to really dig your head into things to figure out, right John, what I'm talking about. We think that there were four books to the Corinthians, and two and three were lost. And what we have is the second book and the fourth book. And there were two books in the middle. Now, it just so happens that apparently that third book in the middle was the book where Paul really put the pressure on the Corinthian church to raise this offering. And he really wanted them to get the offering so that he could take it, he, Paul, could take it to Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. You remember when Paul said, I need to go to Jerusalem for Pentecost? And you remember he was at Pentecost when he brought the two Macedonian Jews with him and they went in the temple and the Jews raised the Herakles about those two Macedonians being in the temple not knowing they were Jews and they arrested Paul and they took Paul to the praetorium there in Jerusalem and they were going to beat him. You remember? And Paul said to the Roman captain, Will you beat a Roman citizen? Now is it ringing? And Paul said, and the Roman captain said, Are you a Roman citizen? He said, I was born a Roman citizen. To which the captain said, I bought my citizenship. Don't beat this man. He's a Roman citizen. You remember? And that's when Paul was taken down to Caesarea and protected for three years. Now a couple of years down at Caesarea. I mean, all of this is happening. Timothy and Titus are actively working with Paul. And it appears that Paul had left Titus in Corinth. And he told Titus in Corinth, Titus, your job here is to organize and administer a fundraising program. Hello Brother John. Hello Sandy. Brother John and Sandy and I and another guy by the name of Bruce McCaw, we raise funds. We are fundraising administrators. Okay? And Titus was a fundraising administrator. And Paul had left Titus in Corinth for the express purpose of getting the funds so that when he was released he could take the funds to Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. Okay? And so that's the whole problem. Now, that third book that we don't have evidently was the book that had this offering really mentioned in it. Because in 2 Corinthians, our 2 Corinthians, chapters 6, 7, 8 and 9 talk about the gift to the poor saints in Jerusalem. And so, this is what, now you're seeing where Titus is operating. Now, Titus put on the Isle of Crete, was left there for a while. Paul had even said to him, however, I'm not going to leave you here permanently. I'm going to move you a little bit. In fact, I may send Artemis down here to be the pastor on the Isle of Crete. Or I may send Tychicus to release you for a while. And Titus, I would like for you to meet me at Necropolis. I'm going to Dalmatia, Yugoslavia. I'd like for you to meet me at Necropolis. And in the meantime, Paul goes to Troas. Troas never, Paul never gets to Necropolis. Paul never gets to Dalmatia. Paul gets to Troas and Paul gets arrested. And Titus is on the Isle of Crete. And in the meantime, Paul has written him this letter, called Titus, three little chapters, about what he, as the pastor on the Isle of Crete, was supposed to be doing. And that's what Titus set off to do. Let me tell you one quick story about the Isle of Crete. On the Isle of Crete, there was a civilization that predated Abraham. Now, you think about that. There was a civilization on this little island, this little rock, down in the Mediterranean. It was called the Minoan Empire. And their king was named King Minos. Every king was named Minos, no matter what his name was. If he became king, he was King Minos. And he was the king of the Minoan Empire. They were seafaring people. They predated the Phoenicians. They were on the ocean. They were on the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean long before the Phoenicians were out there. And these people on the Isle of Crete were great seafaring people. And they were there back in 1600 BCE. Now, Abraham and Jacob were coming toward Egypt in the latter part of the 15th and 16th century. These people on Crete had been there since 3500 BCE. And they were a great civilized culture. They were a great, great civilized culture. And if you ever go to the Isle of Crete, please get your guides to take you to see the ruins of the Minoan Empire. These people were so astute in building operations, they had running water in their bathrooms. They had air conditioning in their houses. Yeah. You know how they did it? They found cold water streams, ran them in pipe down to the house, flopped it over one of those kind of cushioned things where... Did any of you all ever own a swamp cooler? How many of you ever owned a swamp cooler? You know where the water falls over it, the air comes through it, it comes to your house and it cools you off? They built swamp coolers and I am of the opinion and of the understanding that at a time on the Isle of Crete they could bring their houses down to 68 degrees. They had air conditioning, they had heating, they had running water in the toilets, they had buildings. You cannot believe the beautiful buildings they built. They were a tremendous civilization. They were wiped out by a tsunami. In 1600 BCE, the island of Santorini that had a great volcano had a magnanimous eruption. And the eruption was of such in the upper part of the Aegean Sea that it caused a tsunami 22 meters tall. That's 70 feet. 66 feet. It caused a tsunami to go across the Aegean Sea and it literally wiped out the island of Crete. And the only people who survived were the people on the island who were sailors and could get to the ships and get the ships off to the sea before the tsunami hit. And after it was over, the island of Crete was totally wiped out. Repopulated later by the Cretans, not by the Minoans. And as you will hear in the book of Titus, Paul says, the Cretans are lazy, they live in their belly, and they're actually ugly. Now you can imagine Paul saying that about a group of people. Wait until you get to chapter 2 and you can see what he says about the Cretans. Now the Cretans were not the Minoans. They were typically a different group of civilizations. But this island has been known forever for being a magnanimous island of shipbuilders. Okay. Titus was there. Obviously, a very important person for Paul. I wrote in here on page 3 several things about Titus. I want to read them to you. Because, Brother Jimmy, if all of the members of our churches, if all of the male members of our churches, if all the female members of our churches could have these qualifications, we'd have magnanimous churches. This is what it says. It says, Titus was a man for difficult assignments. He was strong. He was gracious. He was obviously sincere, trusted by all parties in controversy. He was good at organization and administration. He was put in charge of the collection of the poor saints. Not only that, Titus was seen and not heard. He was heard by his presence. He didn't talk his way into an activity. He participated his way into an activity. And I wrote here, Titus was a man who was seen, but not in the full-length picture drawn by Scripture, but as a willing servant minister with a presence that was unobtrusive, strong, had a strong personality that was self and not seen, an individual who always worked exceptionally well in trying and difficult situations. Brother Jimmy, wouldn't you like to have a church full of guys like Titus? Yeah. Every pastor would like to have a church like that. Okay. Now next week, when Brother Jimmy opens the Word and you look at the book of Titus and Paul says, Titus, I know you don't want to stay there. I know you would like to come back and be with us again. I know you would like to travel with us again like you've traveled before. I know, Titus. I know what you and Timothy would like to be doing, but Titus, right now, at this point, for this cause, I left you in Crete to establish and ordain, to establish churches in every city, to ordain elders and bishops and to start churches. I left you there for this purpose. And Titus, ladies and gentlemen, after Paul was executed, went back to the island of Crete and history tells us he died there. 1927, British Archaeology Group on the island of Crete. Digging around in the dirt down near Fairhaven in a place that looked like a church. The rocks indicated it might have been a church. And they found a plaque. Now, you know, plaques do a lot of things that identifies persons. And the plaque had the following. Now, you've got to remember, there was a Caesar whose name was Titus. And this gentleman's name was Titus. But this plaque simply says the following. This building is dedicated to the glory of God and to his majestic son, Jesus Christ and to his servant, Titus. Wow. He never, ever left the island. Although he asked Paul if he could. And Paul let him for a little bit. But Titus came back and stayed there his entire life. What a guy. What a Christian man. What a fantastic servant of the Lord Christ. Just a Gentile by the name Titus. I'm going to ask Brother Ed if he will come and lead us in prayer. And folks, we're having a little activity in our house this afternoon. As you all well know. And I talked to the mayor of the village this morning. And she said that the village, that all the folk in the village had done real well last night. They cleaned it up really nice. And so you all will be able to see it today. And the mayor will be there to help you see the village. So we hope that you will come. Two to four, please come. Please enjoy. And four, please leave. It's a come and go at our house from two to four. And we'd love to have you come. And Barbara is looking for you all to come. She's excited about this. We have figured out this is our 31st Christmas gathering. 31. We were counting back in the calendar. In fact, we're running out of guest book. So when you sign it today, there are going to be two pages that you'll be able to sign in the book and some other pages that you're going to be able to sign on the side. Okay? I said, do we need to buy a new guest book? She said, no, let's fill this one up. I said, okay. And we have them all the way back to 13 in the book. All right. So Brother Eddie. How thankful we are today, Father, for Brother Jack and Barbara and that they're willing to open their house and such a wonderful time of fellowship with them. We ask Lord today that the lesson that we heard that we'll find Titus in our own lives and that we'll be the kind of people that would share with others, follow a person that preaches the word and teaches the word. Jesus, let me pray.