Titus 1:10

Book of Titus, chapter 1, verses 9 through 11, our focus will be on verse 10. Holding fast the faithful word, as he have been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and convince the gainsayers. for there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, especially they of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped, whose subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucre’s sake. May God bless to us his sacred and holy word this evening. Perhaps you have come across the children’s picture book game, where’s Waldo? There’s this lanky character named Waldo. Has a cheerful face and a red and white bobble hat. And the idea is to find him in the picture. The problem is that he’s hidden in this enormous crowd somewhere. And there are all these other characters. And there’s different pictures with crowds on the beach or crowds at the fairgrounds or something of this nature. This is this mass of humanity, and within there, there is hidden Waldo. In many ways, that, according to verse 10, sums up one of the devil’s most potent tactics against the gospel. There are many false teachers. They’re everywhere. And so the ploy is the surround the gospel preacher, the one who’s teaching the truth of God’s worth, with many who are spurious ministers, this tremendous crowd, so that it makes it difficult for you to find the truth. Paul has been laying out the qualifications for the elders of the church that Titus is opposed to appoint for the various cities in Christ. The Christian Christians as well as believers today need some solid biblical leadership. And these were loosely gathered assemblies and they needed to have organization. They needed to have elders set over them. He took up that matter in verses 6 to 8. In verse 9, Paul has emphasized that an elder must be able to properly handle the word of God. He must hold fast to the faithful word as he has been taught. And this implies, of course, that the teaching has come from the apostles, that indeed he is applying, he is to teach these men to follow the same pattern that the apostle Paul has laid out for us in the epistles that he’s written. They must also be able to be able to. to exhort believers in the ways of the Lord and encouraged them to walk according to biblical principles. But they must be able to rebuke those who oppose sound doctrine as well. Now Paul explains why this is so necessary in verse 10 because there are many false teachers who are busy undermining the people of God, the truth of God’s word, and leading the people of God. God astray. So we see a description here of false teachers in verse 10. Now you should realize that false teachers are rebellious. The first thing he says about these individuals is that they are unruly. False teachers follow a sinful course rather than obeying the faithful word. That’s the contrast that we have. The word unruly means someone who will not be subject to control. We have the idea of wild horses who will not be reigned in, let’s say. Those who will not be subjected to the control of God’s word. For God’s word tells us we’re not to add to it nor take away from it. It is the reins that God has put on those who would be ministers of the God. gospel of Christ. Thus Paul describes these false teachers as rebellious and insubordinate. False teachers do not promote a submission to God nor His Word. Very often their message has more to do with self-fulfillment than submission. And if they’re teaching, does include submission. It’s to submit to them as the leader, as the one that’s going to tell them how they should live and so forth. Man’s depravity is such that it’s ever excusing sinful actions. People seek out means by which they can rest the scriptures to their own purpose. And that’s what these false teachers are guilty. of doing. If you back up a page to the book of Timothy, 2 Timothy chapter 3 in verse 8, Paul writes this. Now as Janus and Jambraise withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth. Men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the faith. When Moses went to Pharaoh, with the message, let my people go. He proved his divine message, you recall, by performing genuine miracles of God’s power, like turning the water into blood and so forth. And yet Pharaoh’s magicians performed their counter miracles, at least early on, to oppose Moses so that Pharaoh would not listen to what God’s word said, to discredit the message. of God. And they were saying basically, see, we can do that too. It’s just a trick. And we don’t have to obey the word of God. We do not know where Paul got the names of these men, Janus and Jambres. They may indeed be in Jewish history, but we know that this is written under divine inspiration, so we know that these names are actually true. These names have meanings to them, and this is what I find interesting. Janus means he who seduces, and Jambrace means he who makes rebellions. So it is fitting, and I may perhaps these names are really a description of the character of these individuals. But either, in either case, they opposed God’s representative. They opposed divine command that Moses. gave them. So do all false teachers. This is the conclusion that Paul draws from this particular example. You remember when Paul and Barnabas were on their first missionary journey and they stopped at Cyprus and they preached the gospel to a Roman pro-counsel there, Sergius Paulus. And a member of his entourage was a Jewish soldier. sorcerer, a false prophet named Alimus, who did his best to turn Sergius Paulus away from the gospel of Jesus Christ, contradicting, countermanding anything that the Apostle would say. He openly challenged and defied not only Paul’s message, but even God’s sovereign power to bring a man to saving faith. And this is the way it is with false teachers. They twist the scriptures. They undermine it. They oppose the truth. They’re unruly. Recall what Paul said. He called him, oh, full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou chowel to the devil, thou enemy of all unrighteous, thou wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord. And that’s what false teachers are always up to do. Perverting the right ways of the Lord. And so the Lord struck the man with blind. kindness for a season, symbolically punishing Lymus for what he was doing. He was keeping the people in the dark spiritually. So God says, you’re going to be in the dark. I’ll keep you in the dark for a period of time. So false teachers follow a sinful course rather than obeying the faithful word. They’re unruly. Now, let me make a key observation here as we look at this, and that’s this. Never make a man the rule of your faith. Always make the word of God the rule of your faith. There are good men, but good men can make mistakes. Good men can get off course. Good men can embrace a heresy. The trouble today, as we see that one of the great dangers I see, is people have a habit of making. a little God or little Pope out of men. They love a particular teacher. And this is why false teachers can be so successful. Because if you’re just focused on the teacher and on what the Word of God says, and you’re not judging what you hear by the Word of God, you can be led astray. When I was in seminary, my roommate was telling me about a famous pastor, he went to see at the time. It was Jack Howes who had one of the largest supposedly Baptist churches, Armenian Baptist churches, in the country at the time. And he said, one thing really shocked me, he said, when I heard this man speak, he said, why he was speaking, he said, I want you to close your Bibles and listen to me. Now, think about that a minute. Really? Is that what we’re supposed to do? Close our Bibles and just listen to him? Aren’t we supposed to see what the Bible says and make sure he’s teaching from the Word of God? Since when does His Word supersede the Word of God? But this is the way these false teachers operate. They deceive people and people get caught up in the following a person instead of judging things by the Word of God. How else do you explain thousands in a cult drinking poison Kool-Aid or foolishly waiting on a mountaint for the second coming of Christ or something of this nature? Or engaging in wife-swapping ceremonies or dancing around with a rattlesnake during worship service? Or even killing in the name of God an abortion doctor. Something of that nature. One of these famous false prophets that seduced his secretary and claimed that they had a celestial marriage, despite the fact that the woman had a husband. We wonder if they had a celestial marriage, what he was doing committing adultery with her. But what can I say? We didn’t say they were consistent in their teaching. So all these violations of the Word of God are because people, these false teachers are unruly, and they’re insubordinate to what? what God’s word says. And so we need to be very careful in regard to this. You should realize false teachers are rebellious. Don’t follow the man. Follow the word of God. The second thing we notice here is you should realize false teachers are futile talkers. They’re vain talkers, he says. And here we have revealed for us the worthless ministries of these men. There are those who talk a lot but actually never teach you the truth never teach you anything that’s edifying to your soul and beneficial to your walk of life. There’s a lot of double talk. There’s a lot of gobbly gook that’s being spoken on. There are times when my wife is on Facebook and someone will put a quote from their pastor on the internet. And what’s one from one of these mega churches? and he has this whole long paragraph of what he says and she reads it to me and where they’re, what in the world is he saying? It doesn’t even make any sense. It’s gobbly goo. It’s double talk. It’s like you’re thinking how could anybody even follow this? And then everybody said, oh, how wise this man is and how deep he is. Well, yeah, he’s deep because you can’t understand what he’s saying. And this has happened. happened repeatedly. This is not just happening once in a while. This tells you what’s going on out there. And only what I do understand of it is against what the scripture teaches. They Bible want about religious things, but there’s little or nothing in their teaching that’s going to lead you to Christ. Or to a true knowledge of God. Oh, there’s probably some legalistic hair splitting. There may be some pop psychology in it. but sound doctrine well somehow rather that never seems to end up in those quotations. So in regard to themselves, these people become proud persons seeking the applause of man rather than engaging in the faithful exposition of the Word of God. In regard to all their works it’s all futile. You remember Paul talking about people building and what they built on and if you don’t build on Jesus Christ is the foundation, it’s all wood hay and stubble and useless. My friends, if you sow worthless stones, all you’re going to have is a rock garden in the end. You’re not going to have any fruit grow out of that. In regard to their hearers, you’re spending your efforts in vain. Oh, you may enjoy a glorious show of wisdom but you’re not going to have anything that’s going to benefit your soul in the long run. There is no conviction of sin, no reformation of life, no gospel in which to rejoice. You may get your ears tickled, but your heart’s going to be untouched. My friends, if you’re not given spiritual bread, you’re going to starve. Your soul’s going to starve. I’m surprised that so many people settle for starving or living on such little substance when they could go where the Word of God is being taught. They are profane and vain babblers who, desiring to be teachers of the law, understand either what they say or whereof they affirm. 1. Timothy 1-17. They don’t really have a spiritual clue about divine truth. They’re spiritually blind, and if you follow them, you’re both going to fall in the ditch. My friends, when we talk about some people’s ministries, it’s no better than the Pharisees. When they’re done, they make their followers two-fold more. The children have hell than they will. at the beginning. Let me make this observation. If we’re going to make a distinction between godly and ungodly or false teachers, God’s true servants feed his people with wisdom and understanding of the Word of God. While these fraudulent teachers provide no spiritual substance for the nourishment of the soul. A faithful elder has two basic aims, which are certainly contrary to anything false teachers are engaged in. One, he seeks the glory of God, not his own glory. One of the signs of a false teacher is it’s all about himself. It’s all about promotion of self, promotion of his ministry, promotion of what they are doing. John 1718 says, He that speaketh of himself, seeketh his own glory. But he that seeketh his glory that sent him, God’s glory, the same is true. true and no unrighteousness is in him. If a man is seeking his own glory, he’s not seeking God’s glory. The second thing. He seeks the salvation and spiritual progress of the people of God. The false teacher is interested in gathering people around him so that he will have a following, usually for financial purposes. But Paul is a man that would say my prayer and my heart’s desire is for Israel to be saved. was his focus. Christ gave some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the minister, for the edifying of the body of Christ. That’s what a true minister is doing. He calls them vain talkers because what they have to say is worthless. They starve your soul, and all the while they’re smiling at you, telling you how wonderful you will be are about the love of God or something of this nature. They never really tell you what God says of what to do about your sin, what to do with regard to your life and sanctification and how you don’t need to mortify sin and things of this nature. Somehow or other that gets left out because that’s not a very agreeable message to preach. They’re vain talkers. The third thing he says here. You should realize false teachers are deceivers of minds. Who’s the master deceiver? Isn’t it Satan? Satan is the master deceiver. That old serpent called the devil and Satan deceiveth the whole world we read in Book of Revelation. Let there be no mistake about this. Satan is busily engaged in keeping people deceived about the truth of God’s word. and he has his so-called angels of light out there who come along who will tell you that all this is the way to follow the Lord but all the while they’re leading you astray he’s using them to deceive you. From the very beginning Satan has engaged in deceiving minds about the word of God we go back to the garden we go back to the question the serpent ask Eve about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and she says to to him God has said you shall not eat of it she adds nor touch it lest you die and Satan’s response is you know shall not surely die why God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof then your eyes will be opening shall be as God’s knowing good and evil He deceives her. The Bible tells us the woman being deceived. Now all of Satan’s agents, these false teachers follow in the footsteps of their master. They peddle false promises. They actively engage to deceive you and will not teach you to truth about what God’s word says. Christopher Edwards is not a Christian. However, he has an extraordinary story that he told in this book, Crazy For God. Sort of an indication of how false teachers operate. Edwards was a graduate from Yale University in the summer of 1975. He enrolled at Berkeley with plans to pursue a master’s degree. But while he was there, a stranger came up to him and offered him an alleged fun weekend at a local farm. He didn’t realize it was going to be a front for Reverend Moon’s Unification Church that was located there in Berkeley. So he went for that fun weekend and turned out to be seven and a half months of brainwashing that he was engaged in. Christopher was changed from a bright and astute student into a completely subservient disciple of what he called the new Messiah. As he put it, dependent on his leaders for every move, ready and willing to die or even kill, to restore the world under the absolute rule of Reverend Moon. He was kidnapped by his father and a team of trained professionals in January of 1976 had to undergo a full year of deprogramming. Note that those who were outside of Christ are certainly easily deceived by false teachers. But even people who you might consider clear thinking and highly educated can be sucked in and drawn away. I remind you of Christ’s warning on the Olivet discourse, for there shall arise many false Christ and false prophets and shall show great signs and wonders inasmuch that if it were possible, they would deceive even the very elect. That’s how good these people can be in their deception. Now, no true believers ever fatally deceived by a false teacher, but there can be periods of confusion. There can be temporary deception that takes place. How do these false teachers deceive your mind? Well, the first thing you do is suppress the truth. As previously stated, they withhold sound doctrine, and that way they can lead you astride. You don’t know what the truth is? They can lead you anywhere they want to lead you. It’s always those who are not grounded in the word of God who get tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. This is the danger. As Jesus said, ye err, not knowing the scriptures. And this is why we should study the Word of God. This is why we should be in a church that faithfully is teaching the Word of God because there are many false teachers out there who would deceive you. By flattering. false teachers do not directly address the sins of the age. People never really see their true state before God is depraved and wicked and in need of repentance else they perish in hell. The problem is, we’re told, oh, it’s a list of lack of self-assurance. Their sins are minimized so that they always feel good about themselves. People are taught novelties for doctrine, and they think they’re on the weight of heaven when they’re actually they’re on the way to hell. You may not always like it, but you’ve got to be thankful when the pastor faithfully points out your sin and tells you thus say, if the Lord, you need to repent. False religion also is frames things in terms of bodily exercise, touch not, taste not, handle not, like we studied in the book of Colossian. It’s all external stuff they get involved in. It’s a mechanical religion. You know, many say, well, if you just participate in this activity, or that activity, this prayer, this fasting, don’t eat this, don’t do this, then you’ll be all right. We should realize false teachers are deceivers of minds. You know, one of the things I noticed and we used to have a man in the church who I thought was a young Christian, and I was trying to teach him, but one of the things I was trying to be careful of is not stroke his ego. We had someone who came in and stroked his ego, and it really changed that man and what, you know, what he was like. And he became defiant of me and the other elders of the church and began to follow in line with what this one false teacher was promoting. And the way he did things was to flatter this guy. Oh, you can be a teacher in the church. You got the ability to do this. Those elders shouldn’t be telling you what to do. Those elders shouldn’t have that much control. This is the way these people operate. They flatter them. They gain the support. They gain the confidence of people. And they lead him astray. Now, sadly, this person, as far as I can tell, is not even attending church on a regular basis anywhere. If they go, they go sporadically. Sad, isn’t it? They used to come church every service, including Wednesday night services when we had our Wednesday night services. One teacher, flattering, using it to drew these people away from the truth. You should realize false teachers are deceivers of minds. Fourthly, you should realize false teachers need to be identified. He calls them here, especially they of the circumcision. Here’s who I’m talking about, in particular. These guys. American today is likely to be surprised that those who caused the most trouble in Crete and elsewhere were not the polytheistic pagan. with their religions. They were the Jews. Why? The very people that had the same scriptures that the Christians were using, the Old Testament at this point. Yet somehow rather, they were leading people astray and telling them, well, you need to keep the law of Moses and be circumcised in order to be saved. These opponents of the gospel came with a credible, respectable pedigree. They had supposedly a zeal for God. But it wasn’t according to knowledge. Notice here that Paul specifically names those of the circumcision because this clearly identifies the group as being unsound in the faith. Sometimes it’s not enough to tell people don’t drink poison. You have to tell them what the poison is. This is poison. This is poison. So Paul is saying, he speaks generally of false teachers. Then he says, here are the guys, I want you to really pay attention to. These are the guys I’m talking about in particular. For the most part, we see the same problem today. Heretics and heresies must be identified by name. Most professing Christians realize that pagan religions are evil. I don’t have to tell you about Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism. And for the most part, there’s no need to focus simply on the more extreme cults like the branch Davidians or the people’s temple or even the Jova witnesses or the Mormons, you probably know they are wrong. Sadly, though, within so-called Christianity, there are still many false teachers. The Roman Catholic teachers are the circumcision of today. Keep the law and salvation is yours. Unless we think that, you know, in our pride, that we are above such things, I remind you that in the so-called reform churches. There are those who hold the new perspective on Paul, which is a denial of justification by faith alone. I’m going to mention something here, and I’m going to mention it not because I want to be negative about this individual. There are many things that this individual has taught that we’re quite useful. R.C. Sproll and his Ligonier Ministries have had enormous influence in reform circles. But if he goes wrong, it can have far-reaching effects in the reform community. Before he, I don’t think he has passed away at this point, but before he passed away, he became closely affiliated with Douglas Wilson through his son, R.C. Sproul, Jr. and he had these people that had the view of the new perspective on Paul writing in his table talk magazine. In his book, now that’s a good question, printed in 1999, there was a question he answers. What is faith? And R.C. Sprole says this in one of the paragraphs there. He says, the great issue of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century was, how is a and justified. Luther’s controversial position was that we are justified by faith alone. When he said that, many of the godly leaders in the Roman Catholic Church were very upset. Think about that statement in a minute. First of all, Sprole does not describe Luther or his doctrine is godly. He does not describe the Roman Catholic Church leaders or their doctrine is controversial. Luther is not praised for teaching the truth and the Roman Catholic leaders are not condemned for teaching false soul damning doctrine. Sprole goes on to describe Luther’s teaching in a negative fashion. Luther’s view would be understood as an easy believism, I guess by the so-called godly Roman Catholics, in which a person had only to believe and never had to be concerned concerned about bringing forth roots of righteousness. Now that’s not Luther’s teaching. That’s a false spin on it. Remember we’re talking about justification here. When Luther talks about sanctification, you’ll talk about works that a man should do. We’re talking about how is a man justified before God? What does works have to do with that? I remind you, this scroll here is talking about justification. It’s not faith plus works equal justification. That is the Roman Catholic doctor. Later, Sprole will argue from James that works are absolutely necessary for justification. From James chapter 2. Think about that a minute. Somehow or other, he never separates that James is talking about justification before men, where Paul is talking about justification before God. And there’s two completely different things. A man can’t see your faith, but he can see your works, is what James says. So, how? How do you show yourself to be someone who has true faith? Well, you’ll look at your works. And the word justification means declared righteous. How can you be declared righteous before men? By your works. How are you declared righteous before God? By faith alone, through Christ alone, and so forth. My friends, one can, according to Sprole, one can understand and believe the gospel would still go to hell. Here’s the simple teaching. a scripture, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That’s what the scripture teaches about justification. Sproul’s own confession. The Westminster Confession of Faith does not describe faith as he does, nor justification as he does. Either he’s confused or was confused, or he has embraced a heresy completely. I don’t know which it is. Now, to top this all off, I used to listen to the R.C. Sprole tapes. He had tapes on different series of things, and some of them were very good. But one time, he was talking about justification. And he said this about justification. Justification includes infused righteousness as well as imputed righteousness. I’m sorry, but infused righteousness means that God somehow somehow makes you righteous so that you have merit before God. imputed righteousness is that Christ Christ grants his righteousness and credits it to your account so that in God’s sight you are viewed as perfectly righteous. There’s a difference there. They both cannot be true. Now I mention that. Because here’s a man that you might easily think, well, you know, it’s R.C. Spruill. Everybody knows, in the reform circles, everybody knows this man. Yeah, but if you follow him blindly, you may go right down the same path he did. That’s why I’m telling you this, so that you may be aware of these kind of things. We don’t follow the man. You better check and see whether he’s teaching what the scriptures teach. I don’t know if he’s ever changed what he has stated in that book. But that is very confusing. If I want to give him as much charity as I can, it’s very confusing. You may think it’s not loving to charge people with heresy, but often it’s necessary to say, these are the people I’m talking about, be careful. Satan is a deceiver. And he surrounds the true gospel preachers with those who are a crowd of spurious alternatives so you might be deceived. He doesn’t want you to find a truth. It’s like, where’s Waldo? You can’t find him easily. You can’t find the truth easily. Here’s the description. Paul gives a false teachers. Let us be aware of this. Let us pay attention to what he says. This is a very relevant passage of scripture for our own day. Let us close with a word of prayer tonight.