Paul left Titus in Crete. He says in verse 5, For this
cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the
things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city as
I had appointed thee. That's why he left him there.
And then he gives the qualifications of the elders. of the pastors,
the elders there of the pastors. And then he comes down here to
verse 9, and Paul is telling Titus, you charge these men that
they hold fast. Holding fast, that is firm. Holding firm the faithful word. The faithful word here is the
gospel. It's the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And you tell them to hold firm. Steady as you go. Steady as you
go. Don't turn from it. Don't give
in to pressure. Don't give in to pressure, because
they were under a lot of pressure there in Crete. A lot of pressure. Don't you give in to it. You
hold forth the gospel. It's the word of truth. And it's
the only truth. It's the only word by which God
will save sinners. God will not save sinners by
watering down the gospel and trying to make it more appealing
to the flesh. God's not going to save men by
that kind of preaching. It's by the firm preaching of
the truth, as the Scripture says, as it is in Christ Jesus. The gospel never changes, and
the gospel, the faithful word that he's speaking here of, never
deceives any. Never deceives any. The gospel
is the unaltered word of God. Believe it, trust it, and stand
firm by it. Stand firm by it. The gospel
is called the faithful word. I'll give you three reasons. First of all, because it always,
always faithfully glorifies God in all His attributes. There
is no way to glorify God in all his attributes, apart from preaching
Christ and Him crucified, who is the gospel. And then secondly,
because it always glorifies Christ in His person and work. Nothing
else does that. Nothing else but the gospel,
the faithful word that God's given us to preach. And then
thirdly, it always puts man in his place. You know, if God's
going to save a sinner, The first thing that God is going to do
when He saves a sinner is put that sinner in his place. When that woman, that Syrophoenician
woman, came to our Lord and He called her a dog, He said, it's
not right to give the children's bread to dogs. You know what
He did? He put her in her place. Our Lord said in John 14, I go
to prepare a place for you. And in doing that, he must put
us in our place before he takes us to that place. And that's
what the faithful word, the gospel does when it's preached in the
power of God's Spirit. It puts man in his place. And
he says here, hold fast the faithful word as he hath been taught.
Preachers of the gospel are to teach nothing else, nothing else
other than what they have been taught out of the Word of God. All thy children, the Scripture
says, all thy children shall be taught of God. And that's
the only thing that we have to teach is that which God has taught
us out of His Word, out of His Word. We are not at liberty to
make changes, to try to adjust to the group. that we're preaching
to. We're not at liberty to add or
subtract from the Word of God. We preach it as the Word of God,
and He'll deal with it as He will. He'll use it as He will. And the Word of God has one message,
and that one message never changes. Aren't you glad it never changes?
I'm so glad, I'm so glad that I can sit down under a gospel
preacher and know that the message I'm going to hear will glorify
God, it'll tell the truth on God, it'll tell the truth on
Christ, and it'll tell the truth on me. And truth, I'm telling
you this, truth never changes. Now, if you tell a lie, you've
got to remember how you told it. And if you can't remember how you
told it, you're in trouble. But you don't have to remember how
you tell the truth because it's truth. It never changes. That's
why I'm so glad it does not change. And here's the purpose. That
he may be able, that the preacher may be able by sound doctrine,
sound doctrine. Sound doctrine is doctrine that
is established by the Word of God. It comes right out of this
book. That's sound doctrine. I've talked
to men over the years, especially in the workplace, And I've had
men say some things to me, well, doesn't the Bible say, and they'll
say something, and I think, and I ask them, I say, where'd you
get that? And they say, well, it's written in the Bible somewhere.
Well, I've never read, you know, and it's not in the scriptures.
I've had that happen to me particularly twice. And I said, I don't know
where you get that from. The sound doctrine is doctrine
that is established by the Word of God. You can turn to the Scripture
and say, there it is. If you can't, then don't receive
it. If you cannot turn to the Scripture on election, particularly
redemption, if you cannot turn to the Scriptures and establish
these things, then don't receive them. Don't receive anything
you can't establish with the Scriptures, because it comes
out of the Scriptures. And that's why he's saying here that he
may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince
the gainsayer. Only by sound doctrine can a
preacher exhort the members of the body of Christ to do as they
ought to do. It is out of the Word of God. Only by sound doctrine. And only by sound doctrine can
the preacher comfort the flock. I cannot comfort you with words
that God will not acknowledge. You know, our comfort comes out
of the Word of God. And it comes by the Holy Spirit
of God taking the Word of God and using it and applying it
to the heart and giving comfort to the heart with the Word of
Truth, sound doctrine. And only by sound doctrine can
you convince. Argument never convinces anybody. You can argue with a fool all
day and you won't be any different than a fool. Answer not a fool,
Solomon said, according to his folly, lest you be just like
him. No sense arguing with the fool, you just end up making
one out of yourself. But, he says here, by sound doctrine
you will be able to convince the gainsayer. The only person
who is truly convinced is the person who has been convinced
by the Spirit of God out of the Word of God. Out of the Word
of God. And then it's only by sound doctrine
can you actually shut their mouth. I was talking to a man once,
and he just despised the doctrine of election. He despised it. And I said, well, let's read
Ephesians chapter 1. Now you tell me who Paul's talking
to. It is so clear that God chose
us in Christ before the foundation of the world. And he just, after
we opened it up and looked at it, he just said, well, I don't
know. I don't know, and we didn't talk
any more about it. Only by sound doctrine can you
shut the mouth of the gamesayer. If you're going to make him argue,
if he's going to argue, let him do it with the Word of God, not
with you, not with me. Let him take the Word of God
to task. Shut him up to the Word of God.
And here's a sad fact that Paul was telling Titus in ordaining
these elders and teaching them. He says, well, there are many
unruly, unruly. There are people who will not
submit. And he's speaking here of men
who claim to preach the gospel. These are men who who've gone
out and they claim to be preachers and they will not submit to the
authority of God's word. They will not submit to the authority
of God's preacher. Yet they profess that they believe
the gospel. And they go forth and preach it, but he said they're
unruly. Unruly. Disobedient. Disobedient to God. They cause trouble among God's
people. Just like right now if you had
a bunch of kids in here running around, just unruly. You know
how bad that would be in their service? And he said, that's
what these preachers are unruling that causes so much trouble.
And that's because they will not submit to the sound doctrine
of the word of God, the faithful word, the gospel. And they're
vain talkers. What they have to say is empty. Vanity, vanity and vanity. It's
empty, useless. Their message has no substance
to it. Their message has no validity to it. They're babbling idiots,
that's what they are. They're babbling idiots. They're
vain talkers, talking about things they don't know anything about. Not only are they vain talkers,
but they're also deceivers. They deceive themselves and they
deceive those who hear them. I think, I think, That being
deceived is one of the worst things that can happen to a person. I think that's one of the worst
things that can happen, like, to me. To be deceived. You hate
to be deceived. But it's especially bad when
you deceive yourself. It's one thing for somebody to
deceive you, but it's another thing to deceive yourself. But
that's what they are. They are deceivers. They have
deceived themselves, and they deceive those who listen to them. They're vain talkers, they're
deceivers. And he says, and this problem is especially, especially
so among the circumcision, the Jews. Those among the Jews who confess
Christ, they confess believing on Christ. And at the same time,
this is what Titus had to face. This is what Paul had to face.
This is what the elders that he was going to ordain, this
is what they had to face, is that they had these Jews who
went around professing, confessing to believe the gospel and at
the same time demanding that they keep the law. That they had to be circumcised.
They had to keep certain rights and days, and they didn't eat.
They still tried to keep the ceremonial law, not eat certain
meats, and they still demanded that. They still demanded it. And Paul
said, this is a real problem. This is a real problem, and you
cannot let this go on. And these elders will have to
face this, and they'll have to sharply rebuke these men. They'll
have to do it. Because he says in verse 11,
whose mouths must be stopped. Well, they believe this, you
know, we believe that. I'm going to tell you something. When it comes to the gospel,
when it comes to the gospel of God's glory, when it comes to
how God saves sinners, when it comes to who God is, who Jesus
Christ is, what He did, who He did it for, where He is now,
When it comes to man, his fallen nature, when it comes to that, we have to be dogmatic. I mean
unmovable. Unmovable. There's no room. There's no room to let anything
else in. He said their mouths must be
stopped, silenced by the Word of God. And here's the reason
why they have to be silenced, who subvert whole houses. The
word subvert means to overthrow. Or to weaken. And he said, that's
what's going to happen if these men are left alone, they subvert
over houses now. Back in that day. The church
met in people's houses, just maybe like this church coming
over to my house this morning, and that's how they met. And
he's saying they will subvert the whole body of Christ in that
house. The church in that house. They
will subvert that, overthrow it, or weaken it. See how dangerous
it is to just let it go? A good shepherd is not going to
do that. A good shepherd is not going to just allow it to go
on. He's going to put a stop to it. He's going to shut their
mouths because they will subvert whole houses. harm the body of
Christ. Teaching things they ought not,
he said. Things contrary to sound doctrine. Taking the doctrine
and twisting it. Making it say what it does not
say. Things that tear down instead
of building up. Things that do not glorify God,
but they glorify the flesh. He said you've got to put a stop
to that. And the reason they do it He says it's for filthy
lucre's sake. The underlying motive is money. Riches. Money of which the love
of is the root of all evil. Money's not the root of all evil.
You know, Solomon said money is a defense. It can keep you
out of trouble. It can help you if it's used
wisely. It can be a great servant or
it can be a cruel master. But he says they do it for money's
sake. You know, religion is big business. I say the biggest business
in this country is religion. It's religion. People will pay big dollars to
have someone tell them what they want to hear. Preach it the way I like it and
I'll pay you for it. Preach it the way I like it. And Paul says to Titus, he says,
one of themselves, even a prophet of their own. This man lived
a few hundred years before Paul came along and he wrote this. He said the Cretans are always
liars. He said they're just liars. This is one of their own prophets,
the poet. This is one who was educated, lived among them. He
was a Cretan. And he says, the Cretans, he
says, they're liars. They're nothing but a bunch of
liars. They're evil beasts. They're wicked men. And they're
slow bellies. Lying was a national sin. It
characterized them. I think every nation probably
has a sin that characterizes them. And lying characterized
the Cretans. He said, they're liars. It was
their governing vice. And they were savage and mischievous
people. And this is what he had to deal
with. This is what the elders were going to have to deal with
on a regular basis. And Paul says in verse 13, this
witness is true. Paul said their poet was right.
Their prophet was right. They are liars. They are evil
beasts. He described them. He nailed
them. He nailed them. He described them right. Wherefore,
He says, rebuke them sharply. Sharply. Error must be rebuked. He says sharply. Sharply. Souls are at stake. You know, we come in here. We
have a worship service. We open the Word of God. I don't
know that we can, this side of eternity, realize the significance,
the importance of what we are doing right now. I just don't
know that we can grasp the importance of this service right now. He
says, rebuke them sharply. Souls are at stake. God's glory
is at stake. Not everything needs to be rebuked
sharply, but where there's error in doctrine and God's glory is
at stake and your soul is at stake, he says, rebuke it sharply. Don't allow it to even get a
foothold. Don't allow them to even get a toe in the door. Rebuke
it sharply. And here's why. That they may
be sound in the faith. The goal is this. The goal is
that they may be recovered from error. Not to destroy them. Not
to embarrass them. Not even just to expose them.
But they may be recovered. Paul always preached the truth
in love, didn't he? Even rebuking these men who are
in error, He says, rebuke them sharply and for this reason,
Titus, for this reason, that they may be recovered from their
error and be sound in the faith. Well, that's just, Paul's heart
was always going out, always going out to those to whom he
preached. A proper rebuke is like medicine to the sick. It's like the proper medicine
for the proper ailment. That's what it's like. A proper
rebuke is like that. It's good for the person who's
been rebuked, and it's good for the body of Christ. And don't give heed. He says,
tell them not to give heed to Jewish fables. A fable is something
that's fictional. It's not true. It's just not
true. He said, don't give heed to it. Don't even listen to it. Don't listen to it. They had
many fables that they had concocted. And you've got to realize, the
Jews, they've been in the law for all those years, raised up
religious. And then all of a sudden, you
come over to these Cretans and come over to these Gentiles. And they could easily walk in
and just start twisting things and just mess you up. Because
these were just babes in Christ. The church was so young. And
here he says, don't give heed to Jewish fables. You make sure
that whatever it is that they listen to, if someone comes to
them and says, let me talk to you, you make sure that they
can establish it with the Word of God. Don't just give heed
to these things. And commandments of men, traditions
of the elders, the Jews, they started placing more emphasis
on tradition than they did on God's commandments. They started
placing more emphasis on those things. I hope, and I hope the
Lord gives me the wisdom, as time goes by, not to do anything
because it's a tradition, but because it is the Word of God
and it's the way it ought to be done. And he says here, they turn from
the truth. That turn from the truth, that
is, here's what it's saying, they hate the truth. They hate
the pure, unadulterated truth of God. And the whole design
is to turn men from the truth. Satan is so subtle. So subtle. He can just put a little twist
on something. Isn't that what happened in the garden? He took
the Word of God. When he spoke to Eve, he took
what God said and put a little twist on it. And that little
twist ruined the whole thing. They turn from the truth. What
seems harmless actually turns men, he says, from the truth. Now unto the pure, all things
are pure. The pure spoken of here are those
washed in the blood of the Lamb. They have been washed in the
blood of the Lamb. They have been made righteous in the Lord
Jesus Christ to them. Now to them, he says, all things
are pure. You see, the Jews came in, some
of these Jewish men came in who had confessed Christ, and they
said, you're still not supposed to eat pork. We still can't eat
pork. You know, we're not supposed
to do that. Well, Paul says we can eat anything as long as,
you know, Thanksgiving. There was no unclean food that
was received with thanksgiving. And this is why he's saying here,
to the pure, all things are pure. The Scripture says, nothing that
goes in the mouth can defile a man. Nothing. Nothing at all. It's what comes
out. What comes out of the heart. But unto them that are defiled
and unbelieving, nothing's pure. Nothing is pure. They are not
pure and nothing that they do is pure. Nothing at all. Their own pretended worship of
God is unclean. He says here, but even their
minds and conscience is defiled. Defiled. They're like a polluted
fountain. There's nothing clean about them at all. And in works
they deny Him. Their very lives prove that they
do not know Christ. They've never been born of God.
Their very lives prove that. Faith and conduct always go together. They go together. Can't be separated. And they are abominable, he says.
They're abominable in God's sight. No matter what men may think
of them. You may think, well, he's a good
neighbor. He's been a good neighbor. I know this man. He's an honest
man. But I'm telling you this, if he does not hold forth the
faithful word, the gospel, if he does not hold to it, in God's
sight he's abominable. God said he's an abominable man.
And he's disobedient to the gospel and he's disobedient to God's
preachers. He's an unruly person. Unruly. And every good work Reprobate. Reprobate. And that means this,
without judgment and without understanding. That's what a
reprobate is. A reprobate is someone who is
without spiritual discernment, spiritual judgment, and he's
without understanding. Well, I see nothing wrong with
it. even with the things that are wrong. Nothing good in them. They are fruitless professors.
And that's why Paul, writing to Titus, he says, you ordain
these elders in every city, you take care of those things that
are wanting, things that need to be taken care of, but you
charge them. And you tell them, you tell them
to hold fast the faithful word, hold fast the gospel as they've
been taught, that they may be able by sound doctrine both to
exhort and convince the gamesayer. You hold that gospel that God
delivered unto you by which you were saved. You hold it firm.
You hold it fast. And don't you waver one iota
at all. I pray God enable me and us to
do that whatever time we've got here. All right.