the book of Titus chapter 1.
And let's read the beginning in verse 9. Titus chapter 1 and
verse 9. The apostle says here, he gives
instructions to these pastors, these elders, and he says, Hold
in fast the faithful word as he has been taught, taught from
the Word, taught of God. that he may be able, by sound
doctrine, both to exhort and to convince the gang-sayers.
For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, especially
they of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert
whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, and they
do it for filthy lucre's sake. One of themselves, even a prophet
of their own, said, The Cretans are always liars, evil beast,
slow bellies. This witness is true, wherefore
rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith. Not
giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men that
turn from the truth. Unto the pure all things are
pure, but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing
pure, but even their mind and conscience is defiled. They profess
that they know God, but in works they deny him, being abominable
and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate." The apostle
here is addressing these people, these religious people mainly
on this isle of Crete and he has several harsh things to say
concerning these people. He calls them here in the first
verse that I read to you, gang sayers. That means they contradict. They're contradictory. The things
that they believe contradicts the Word of God. What they believe
about God, what they believe about themselves, what they believe
about Christ and salvation is all contradictory to the Word
of God. What they believe about how a believer lives, how a Christian
lives out his life in this world, they're contradictory. All things
that they believe and the way they live is contradictory to
the Holy Scriptures. And then he went on here to call
them unruly. He describes them as unruly.
That is, they won't submit themselves to God's Word. They won't submit
themselves to the rule of Christ. He rules His church. He rules
His kingdom by His Word, but they won't submit to that. They
want to live according to their own will, according to their
own way, and they won't submit to the Word of God. That's the
message that the Jews sent after Christ was, we'll not have this
man to rule over us. And then he says here, they're
vain talkers. They're talkers. Boy, they can
talk. They can talk, talk, talk, talk. But they're empty. It's
empty talk. In other words, what they're
saying is nothing that will edify a man's soul and bring him nearer
to God and help him on his way to heaven. It's just vain, empty
talk. I was watching the politicians
last night, all the politicians. They were giving their speeches
and so on, and I was amazed. I told my wife, I said, look
at this guy. He had no notes. He was standing
out in the middle of the crowd with his little thing talking,
He went on and on and on forever. And it was amazing. I said, only
a slick politician can do this. Then after a few minutes, I really
got to listen to him. And you know what he was saying?
Nothing. He was saying nothing. I had
a friend of mine. I thought about this old deacon
friend of mine. He took a friend of his to church
to hear this fellow preach. This friend of his, I knew him,
he was maybe too bold, but they were leaving out of the building
and the preacher was standing there at the door shaking hands
and my deacon friend said his friend shook hands with the preacher
and the preacher said, what do you think of my message? And
he said, well, since you ask. He said, well, I got out of that
message, you could have put it in a thimble and put a big cork
in it. So that may have sounded rude,
but he said the man said nothing. He said nothing that edified
his soul. And that's what Paul is talking
about here, vain talkers. Boy, this has got to be the burden
of every God-called preacher. This is my burden. I have confronted
myself with this and asked myself this question so many times.
Am I an ambassador of Jesus Christ? Has He truly gave me a message
from His Word? Or am I a vain talker? It is
just empty, vain talk. Is my faith in Christ vain? Is
my hope in Christ vain? Is my preaching vain? These guys
were vain, just empty talkers. Here is what the Lord Jesus said,
ìThis people draw near to me with their mouth,î they can talk,
ìand they honor me with their lips, but their heart is far
from me,î listen to this, In vain do they worship Me. They believe in Me, but it is
a faith that is vain. They say they hope in Me, but
it is a vain hope. All they preach and say about
Me is just empty words, teaching for doctrines the commandments
of men. Last week we looked, I think
I made mention last week of how important it is for what we believe and how we
judge and how we determine things in our life. It's so important
that we judge and determine things according to God's Word, isn't
it? And not according to our own hearts. I remember, you remember Pilgrim's
Progress when Christian and Hopeful met Ignorance. They called him
Mr. Ignorance, old Ignorance. And
they were talking to him about his hope and about his faith
and everything and about having right thoughts. And he asked
Christian, he said, Well, what is right thoughts? He said, Well,
Christian said, Ignorance, there's right thoughts towards God. There's
right thoughts towards ourselves. There's right thoughts towards
Christ. And he said, What constitutes
right thoughts? And he said, Well, when we think
of God and when we think of ourselves, when we judge ourselves, We must
judge ourselves according to God's Word. That is, our natural
heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags and our ways are
crooked. And when God looks upon us, He's
an all-knowing God. He can see sin in us when and
where we can't see it in ourselves. And this tells us that we must
have a righteousness outside of ourselves given to us by the
merits of another, Jesus Christ. And Ignatius said this, You'll
never convince me that my heart is thus bad. And Hopeful said to him, Why,
dear Ignatius, then you've never had a right thought towards God,
towards Jesus Christ, or yourself, if that thought is not determined
by the Word of God. So everything we believe in,
our salvation, how we walk, must be determined one way, by the
faithful Word of God. But you're these vain talkers.
They talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, but they never
establish anything by the Word. That's why it will never help
you. It will never help you. I can't believe my heart is this
bad. How do we know about God? How
do we know the truth about ourselves? How do we know the truth about
salvation? How can we say it's not vain? We're not believing
in vain or talking about it in vain because we've established
it according to God's Word. That's one thing I like about
our teachers here. They get up on Sunday morning
and they come here and stand before us and you know the first
thing they say? Open your Bibles. open your Bibles. Why do we do
that? That is what we established everything
by, isn't it? So here you have these fellows
that Paul called contradictors, unruly, vain talkers, and he
says in verse 10, and this is why it is so important to establish
what we say according to God's Word, because look here in verse
10, unruly, vain talkers, and deceivers. and deceivers. If a man talks and talks and
talks and talks and talks and his words are just empty and
vain, he's not only probably deceived himself, but here's
the sad and heart-wrenching thing, he's probably going to deceive
other people. To be blind ourselves is bad. For a man to fall into the ditch
by himself is bad. But when the blind lead the blind,
and they all fall into the ditch, that's worse than ever, isn't
it? And that's what Paul's saying here, deceivers, deceivers. I had a friend of mine at work,
and he and I used to go around about this all the time. He said
that he believed that men who were deceived by other men would be saved. He said, you
know, if one man deceives another man, the man that did the deceiving
was the man that God was going to punish. But He wouldn't punish
those who were deceived by another man. But what does the Bible
say? If the blind lead the blind, they both will fall into the
ditch. It's bad enough to be blind myself.
But if I'm out here blabbing, blabbing, blabbing, blabbing,
blabbing, Other people's followed me, they're going right into
the ditch with me. Paul said they're deceivers.
And it's a heart-sobering fact that the words that come from
our mouths can be the instrumental cause of another man's deception
and ultimate destruction. That's a heart-sobering thing,
isn't it? I wish some of these preachers would take that to
heart. The Lord Jesus said to the Pharisees
and scribes and hypocrites, He said, Woe be to you, for you
shut up the kingdom of heaven against men. You shut it up against
men. You neither will go in yourselves,
and those who would go in, you hinder. And how did they do that? Words, vain words and talking. I'd rather be born without a
mouth. I'd rather be born without a hand to write with or fingers
to sign with for my words to deceive men and be the instrument
of their eternal ruin." That's a sobering thing, isn't it? That's
a sobering thing. I've had I don't know how many
people to ask me, why don't we have testimonies here? Why don't
we have open testimonies? I want everybody to testify.
And I always tell them the same thing. I'm scared to death to
do it. I'm scared to death to open up the service and say,
you all want to testify. And this one gets up and testifies,
and that one gets up and testifies. I've been in those kind of services.
And I've seen the pastor get up after some testify and try
to straighten out the things that were said wrong. There's
something wrong with us if we come together as a group and
everybody's wanting to say something. What if we're wrong? What if
somebody believes what I say and I'm wrong and I've got to
go up to heaven now and give account of it? That's seriousness.
Listen to Ecclesiastes chapter 5 verse 1. He said, When you
go to the house of God, keep your foot, and be more ready
to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they consider not
that they do evil. Be not rash with your mouth,
and let not your heart be hasty to utter anything before God,
for He is in heaven, and you are upon this earth. Therefore
let your words be few." And that's why we don't do it.
Where my wife and I was going to years and years ago, we were
sitting there one time and the preacher's brother-in-law got
up to testify. And he said, you know, he said,
I believe all those Indians were saved. He said they believed
in the great white spirit in the sky. And people, you know,
worship God under different names. And I believe they were worshiping
God. Then the poor pastor had to get up to correct his brother-in-law.
And what a mess that was. They didn't get along too well
anyway. He'd have saved himself a lot of trouble if they'd just
went on with the service and kept it orderly. Words, they're
important, aren't they? I often tell the grandbabies,
children, listen, God didn't make your mouths to bite each
other with. God didn't make your fingers to scratch each other's
eyes out with. And every idle word that we speak
will give account thereof in the day of judgment. Every idle
word? What about all this vain clatter?
And it's deceitful, isn't it? It's deceitful. And Paul said
they're deceivers. And that's why it goes on in
verse 11 and the Apostle says their mouths must be stopped
because they teach things they ought not. And we've got one
way we stop them. We don't make laws against censoring. That's not what we're about,
is it? We don't raise our fists to them
and try to shut their mouths that way. We've got one way to
stop these people's mouths and that's by the faithful Word of
God. By exhorting them and by convincing
them of the truth as it is in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the way we do it. And He gives us permission here
and even commands us to do it. We bear witness against these
vain talkers. Now here in verse 12, He tells
us something. Sometimes you run into these
little verses and you read over them if you are not careful,
but they tell us something really. They make this statement, but
there's a message in this. It's something that God is doing
even among heathen, cultures, nations, lost people. He says,
One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretans
are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. Always liars. It means you can't trust them
to say anything. This was a culture of liars.
and they were evil beasts. They just devoured the spiritual
things of God. They devoured men's souls, made
merchandise of them like those buzzards we talked about last
week. Drag an old pig or a cow off and they fly down on it and
eat it like a lion or a hyena or something. And He said, ìHere
are their slow bellies.î That simply means they lived to satisfy
their carnal desires. Another place, Paul said, God
is their belly. And he said another place, they
serve not the Lord Jesus but their own bellies. Now who said
this about these people? One of their own prophets. He
knew them better than anybody. And what did he say about them?
These awful things. And he said there in verse 13,
this witness is true. See how sometimes God raises
up Men, even though they're lost, boy, they're exposed to sin and
their little groups and their cliques and their religious denominations
and so on. Let me give you some examples
of that. Remember Nicodemus who came to the Lord Jesus by night?
And he exposed something about those Pharisees. He exposed something
about the Sanhedrin that hated the Lord Jesus Christ. God had
sent some light among them and they would not even admit it.
But Nicodemus admitted it. He came to the Lord Jesus by
night and he said, We know something about you. We are not going to
tell it. I will tell it to you in the
secret of the darkness, but we are not going to tell it to other
people. If the word gets out, they are going to take our position
from us. On Nicodemus, what do you know about the Lord Jesus
Christ? We know this, that He's a teacher come from God. Oh! They knew more than what
they were letting on. They had some light, didn't they?
Where it came from, it came from God. And somebody stood up in
that council and said, He's a teacher. And they said, Yeah, but don't
you tell anybody. Let me give you another example. Remember
Pilate's wife? when Pilate was sitting in judgment
on the Lord Jesus, said to let Him go or to crucify Him? And Pilate's wife came to him
and said, Have nothing to do with this just man. How did she
know who Jesus was? How did she know He was a just
man? How did she know He wasn't deserving of death? Somebody
gave her some light and I think it was the Lord. It was God.
I have suffered many things this night in a dream because of this
man. And boy Pilate became so afraid
he tried to release the Lord. But the Jews said no. Look here
in another place. I thought of this too. Look in
John chapter 11. John chapter 11. This is where
the Lord had just raised Lazarus from the dead. And here in verse 45, And many of the Jews which came
to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on
him. But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told
them what things Jesus had done. Then gathered the chief priests
and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? For this
man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all
men will believe on him, and the Romans will come and take
away our place and our nation. And one of them, named Caiaphas,
being the high priest that same year, said unto them, You know
nothing at all. Now John Gill said this literally
means, You are a partial of ignorant and stupid creatures, mere fools
and idiots. Now if I said that, my wife would
get all over me. I'm not allowed to say it anymore, but that's
John Gill, what he said that literally meant, fools and idiots,
that's what he called them. Neither consider, in verse 50,
that it is expedient for us that one should die for the people
and that the whole nation perish not. Now, what a wonderful prophecy
that is. He was speaking of the atonement,
wasn't he? How did He mean this? He may have meant this to say
it's for the greater good that this Jesus of Nazareth die and
we still remain a nation because if He don't die, then the Romans
are going to come and take it away from us anyway. So it's
better that one die than we all perish. But unknowingly, unwittingly
to Him, He just prophesied of the atonement of the Lord Jesus
Christ that one man should die and not everybody perished. In
verse 51, this he spake not of himself, it didn't come out of
his own heart, but being a high priest that year he prophesied
that Jesus should die for that nation and not for that nation
only but that also he should gather together in one the children
of God that are scattered abroad. God's got a way, hasn't He? Putting
in the minds, opening a person's heart is understanding and getting
some truth in to a place where otherwise no truth would dwell.
Let me show you another place, a bigger place. Look in Acts
chapter 17. You all remember this place.
Acts chapter 17 and look in verse 22. I imagine the judgment will tell
when everybody is standing before God. I imagine only that, only
that day will reveal the light that God had put in some men's
hearts that was in these nations, heathen nations, in these religious
groups that was against God. And yet, right in the midst of
that mess and darkness, He raised up somebody and rebuke those
people just like this prophet rebuked the Cretans for their
wickedness. But here Paul was at Mars Hill. He saw all of these
idols. And here in verse 22, look what
he said. Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill and said,
You men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are too
superstitious. For I passed by and beheld your
devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, to the unknown
God, whom ye therefore ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you.
God that made the world, and all things therein, seeing that
He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made
with hands. Neither is worship with men's
hands, as though He needed anything. Seeing He gives to all life and
breath, and all things, and hath made of one blood all nations
of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined
the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation,
that they should seek the Lord, if happily they might feel after
him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of
us. For in him we live, and move, and have our being, as certain
also of your own poets have said, and this is the quote from that
poet, for we are also his offspring. For as much, then, as we are
the offspring of God, we ought not to think that God, the mighty
God, is likened to gold or silver or stone that is graven by art
and men's devices." These men were not as ignorant as they were doing. They had
more light than they realized. And it was from one of their
heathen poets. That was this man. We still have
this man's writing today, some of his poetry. He was born 300
years before the Apostle Paul lived, and he's born in Cilicia,
just a few miles from where the Apostle Paul himself was born
in Tarsus. And here's what the guy wrote.
His name is Oritus, and here's what he wrote. He was a heathen
poet, a true heathen. He called Jehovah Job, J-O-B-E. With Job we must begin, nor from
him rove. Him always praise, for all is
full of Job. He fills all places where mankind
resort, the wide spread sea with every shelter and port. Job's
presence fills all space, upholds this ball, all need His aid,
His power sustains all, for we are His offspring, and He in
love points out to man His labor from above." We are His offspring. That's what he said, the heathen
poet. And Paul quoted him here, and Paul said, You guys are ignorant,
and you worship God ignorantly, but your own poet has told you
the truth about who God is. You weren't begotten by some
stone or stick. You are born of God even in your
natural life. God gave you your being. And
now here you are worshiping these idols, these altars. Your own
parents rebuke you for doing that. So that is what you see
in this. I was reading the Catholic magazine
back when all this broke on the children being molested in the
Catholic Church. And you know who one of the men
was? I think it was the Boston Globe,
two or three writers there that really broke it. But you know
who was another writer that broke the story? He was one of the
prominent editors of the chief magazine in the United States,
the Catholic magazine. He broke it. I read his whole
story. He said back in the early 60s,
it came right down from the top, from the Pope himself, that we
need to start recruiting homosexual priests because our priests are
wanting to marry. And therefore, so we won't have
any controversy and trouble out of them, let's recruit homosexual
priests. They won't want to marry that
way. They got so many in there, then they started molesting the
little children, the little boys. And this Catholic editor of that
magazine, he exposed them. God's got his witnesses, hasn't
he? They're evil beasts. They're liars. They're slow bellies.
Who said that? A man that lives among them.
A man that knows them. Why would he write that? Why
would he expose them? I don't know. Let's God make
him. Let's God give him light to do
it. But the judgment, everybody will be without excuse. I don't
care how dark the society is, I'm telling you there's going
to be people that rise up and God's going to say, that man
right there told you the truth and you wouldn't listen to him.
That lost man himself, that heathen himself, he told you. And if
that doesn't happen, the little ant is going to rise up in judgment. Go to the ant, thou slugger.
Consider her ways and be wise. God has got His witnesses, doesn't
He? And Paul says you are in clothes
and he says you are in verse 13. Wherefore, he says, this
witness is true, therefore rebuke them. Look at this sharp lip.
Sharp lip. I tell you what, it takes courage. And I am not just talking about
courage for a pastor. It takes courage for believers
wherever they are. in their homes, visiting family
and friends, on your job, it takes courage to be a witness
for the Lord Jesus Christ. Because you not only bear witness
for the truth, there are times you have to stand against the
false. You have to! And it's not always
easy, is it? Sometimes you can entreat somebody.
Sometimes you can say, Now, that's not right. That's not right.
Let me tell you what's right here about this. Other times,
if the offense is worse, you have to reprove them. Listen!
You're wrong about this. And boy, when it's really bad,
and the offense is really bad, then it comes to rebuke. And
not only rebuke, but a sharp rebuke. Boy, you've got to take
the sword and go for the heart. You're dead wrong, mister, and
God's going to judge you for it. You're deceiving people.
You better go get on your face before the Lord and get in the
book. What you're saying is wrong. You're lying on God. You have
to be sharp, don't you? You have to get their attention.
And the reason Paul told them to do that, that these believers
on this hour might be sound in the faith. If you don't tell
them and you don't rebuke those guys that's blabbering on with
empty words, then they may begin to try to lead some of these
people astray, the believers astray. But when they hear you
rebuke these people, then they're going to say, boy, that guy's
wrong. I'm not following him. We've come to a day, I'm sorry
to say, when so many in religious circles think to rebuke somebody,
even to reproof somebody, or to disagree with somebody, it's
just awfully unkind and narrow-minded and just downright mean and hateful.
But that's not what the Bible says. Some of you right here
tonight have had to stand against your own family. And the Lord
Jesus said, that's why I've come. I've not come to send peace on
this earth. You've got peace in your heart. You've got peace
with God. But you don't have peace with
this world. This world's wrong. This world hates Christ. It hates
the Gospel. And boy, you've got this conflict.
So we might as well have said ourselves, there comes a time,
there comes a place where we stand against the lie, the untruth. We don't do it in hatefulness.
We're not mean about it. We do it in love, but we do it,
don't we? We do it. I used to pray. I used to work
around a bunch of steelworkers. And man, you thought steelworkers
were rough guys, boy. They talk about custom sellers.
They've got nothing on steelworkers. And I made it a point every morning
before I went into work, begging the Lord to help me. Lord, don't
let me fall today. Give me grace to stand and bear
witness to these men." And it was tough. You all know what
it is, don't you? It's tough. Rebuke them sharply. Well, the Lord bless His Word.
Wayne, would you dismiss this?