Titus 1:14

Titus chapter 1. I’m going to read verses 9 through 16, our focus on verse 14. Holding fast a faithful word as he have been taught that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers, where 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 for filthy lucre’s sake. One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said that Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, and slow bellies. This witness is true. Wherefore, rebuke them sharply, they may be sound in the faith. Not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men that turn from the truth. Under the pure, all things are pure, and under them that are defiled and under them that are defiled, believing 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 under every good work reprobate. God blessed to us the reading of His holy and sacred word this evening. The Roman siege in 70 AD, became of Jerusalem, became the climactic battle in the Jewish revolt against the Roman Empire. When the Roman legions swept across Palestine, we find that they conquered all on their path, and so the Jewish zealots hold themselves up behind the massive walls of Jerusalem, thinking that they would be secure. This fortress-like city. Paul is an extremely difficult challenge for any type of military army to overcome. However, the Roman legions were quite skilled in siege work, and we find what they did was they found another way to attack, since they couldn’t easily assault the walls. They did assault them, but they decided they would do some mining. And they mined under sections of the wall. of Jerusalem and then collapsed the walls and went through the opening in the hole, in the wall, and attacked the city. And slowly but surely, the Romans were able to capture all the sections of that walled city. The word of God is sort of like a protective wall for the people of God, yet the enemies of God’s truth are very adept and undermine, it in various ways. Paul sees this as a major problem confronting Titus. In verse 14, he tells us, he are not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men that turn from the truth. The believers on Crete were permitting individuals to tamper with the message of God. and when this occurs then there is turning away from the truth and that’s what he is concerned about there’s no protective wall then and the enemy overruns the church of God God so Paul wants these Christians on Crete to be sound in the faith verse 13 and so he warns them against this danger now there’s nothing new under the sun We should recognize the warning that Paul gives here to the Grecian believers. It’s certainly a warning we need as well today for the same tactics are being used. I want to talk about undermining God’s truth. Now you should be aware of the problem of God’s truth being undermined. It can be undermined by false interpretation. We read here about giving heed to Jewish fables. Now in general, Jewish fables can take in sort of a wide range of items and ideas, such as all the false glosses and false interpretations that the Jews put on the Holy Scriptures. The Jews in particular, the rabbis and scribes, really focused and taught solely the external, the literal meaning of the law, but didn’t focus on the internal or spiritual application of the law of God. Christ had to challenge these Jewish leaders constantly about their interpretation of the law. The sermon on the mount is a prime example of it. And you recall that the commandment thou shalt not commit adultery. They restricted the scope of that to just physical adultery. Whereas Jesus indicates that looking on the woman, lusting after her with your heart, is a violation of this commandment. But that was a gloss that they put on this commandment. So the law really prohibited all impure thoughts and desires of the heart as well as physical adultery. Take the commandment thou shalt love thy neighbor, Leviticus 1918. The Jewish rabbis restricted the rabbi’st. the word neighbor to their friends or their close associates, their own nation, or their own religious group. They explained the passage as Jesus tells us in Matthew 543, thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. In other words, your enemy could never be your neighbor, and that’s how they interpreted the passage of scripture. Now, you see this is a false interpretation. It’s a fable to think this way. Because Jesus tells us in the account, the parable, if you would, of the Good Samaritan, that anyone you meet who is in need is your neighbor. And so he expands this out. In the story of the Good Samaritan, a Jewish lawyer, you recall, attempted to evade the actual meaning of that scripture, love your neighbor. And he said, well, who is? neighbor. Jesus gave this account here of the Samaritan demonstrating love and compassion on his neighbor who was a Jew. He had been beat up and left half dead on the roadside. The Jewish Levite and the Jewish priest walked by and didn’t have any concern for him, but the Samaritan who doesn’t really have any dealings with Jews, he stops and tries to help him and takes him to a place where he can get some medical attention and promises to pay for the expenses and so forth. But the point is, this neighbor, according to the law, goes beyond national ties. Goes beyond your friends. Love your enemies, Jesus said. It is a fulfillment of the law. You have to love your enemies as well. So this was another gloss that they put on the teaching. We can also include here the teachings of the Jewish Talman, which were supposed to be based upon the law of God. Strange allegorical interpretations were placed on the accounts of Scripture. Some allowed for some very bizarre teaching. One of the things they taught is the rolling of the dead through the caverns of the earth at the resurrection. Things of this nature. but the context of this verse seems to indicate that Paul has specifically in mind the ceremonial observances of the law of God. Here’s another fable. For he speaks about real purity and real defilement in verse 15. And we’ll get to that Lord willing in another study. But the Jews taught that salvation really involved the observance of certain, you know, feast days and purification rights, and washings of the body, wearing as special garments, staining from some meats and drinks and all these kind of areas of life. It is true that God gave these laws, but he never gave them for the purpose of salvation or for the purpose of teaching that somehow rather spiritually you are benefited if you abstain from eating pork or something of this nature. The law is our schoolmaster to bring us under Christ that we may be justified by faith the scriptures. So they were shadows of spiritual things. Even the, we even talked about this and we talked about the various food restrictions and how really they were really for the purpose of teaching us something about spiritual matters. It was just in time. type form. Anyhow, all these ceremonial restrictions expired when Christ came and established his kingdom. It’s a fable now to teach, and to think that some or other, you can make pure by keeping these things, or that these can be part of your salvation and must be. It’s a fable, because of Judaizers were certainly spreading this teaching. So giving heed to Jewish fables. Now, when it comes to the Jewish fables. the false interpretations of scripture. I talked about the allegorical teachings. He might say, well, who does that? It wasn’t that long ago, the man named Harold Camping, who used to be on the radio before he passed away. But in his time on the radios in the 90s, 1990s and so forth, and later on, he taught some very strange teachings. Look. Look with me at John 21. This is what I’m talking about, when I’m talking about these allegorical interpretations of Scripture. If you ever have read this particular section of scripture in John 21, 1 through 11, I guarantee you you never got what he got out of this passage in Scripture. The Bible says, after these things, this is speaking after, of course, Christ’s resurrection. Jesus showed himself again to the disciples. at the Sea of Diberius, and on this wise, showed he himself. There were together Simon Peter and Thomas Calidimus and Nathaniel of Canaan and Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples. Simon Peter said, unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, we also go with thee. They went forth and entered her ship immediately, and that night they caught nothing. But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus said unto them, children, have you any meat? They answered no. And he said unto them, cast the net on the right side of this ship, and you shall find. They cast, therefore, and now they were not able to draw in, or draw it for the multitude of fishes. Therefore, that disciple whom Jesus loved, we assume this is John, the writer of this gospel, Seth, unto Peter, it is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fishers coat onto him, for he was naked, and did cast himself into the sea. And the other disciples came in a little ship. They were not far from land, but as it were 200 cubits, dragging the net with fishes. As soon as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon and bred. And Jesus said unto them, bring of the fish that ye have caught. Simon Peter went up, drew the net to the land, full of great fishes, 153, 150, and 3. And for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken. Now, Harold Camping, best known for many years as the voice of the Family Radio, a worldwide religious ministry. Before he died, he admonished his followers to flee the churches, that it was the will of God because they were all apostate. He argued that God had eliminated the church as an institution for teaching the saints and for evangelizing the lost. Where did he get his thinking on this? all right here, this text of scripture, John 21. This is his passage. A stunning illustration of a false interpretation of scripture and allegorizing it to death. Camping approached John 21, and he placed its context in the modern day. He used it as a prophetic teaching, and not as a historical account of what took place. Evidently, the hundreds of generations of Christians before him were utterly clueless about the real meaning of this text until he came along to give us his illumination on it. Since John here names the Sea of Tiberius in verse one, we’re told that the focus of John 21 is worldwide because that is a Roman designation. There are seven disciples in the boat, we’re told, verse two. Camping tells us that this number symbolically implies the entirety of the church being represented. We are told that the church is out fishing for man and that the boat also pictures the church. And then he reminds us that boats can sink. Thus the church can be destroyed. The fact that the boats didn’t sink is totally ignored. The fact that God blessed them and gave them this great hall of fish, fish is ignored too. But that’s the glory of these incoherent, allegorical interpretation. You can pick and choose whatever you want. You can make it mean whatever you want it to mean. And ignore the context. Now we fast forward to verses 3 and 4. And it takes us ahead some 1900 years. Supposedly the church hasn’t done its job because they’ve caught nothing. Evidently, he forgot about the Reformation. and you forgot about the Great Awakening, things of that nature. So the disciples here don’t even recognize Jesus Christ on the shore. Thus, there is something seriously wrong with the church. Supposedly because the church is not able to haul in the catch of fish, verse 6, there comes a time when salvation must take place, therefore, outside the church. Thus, the church must be abandoned. Disciples should leave it, be with the Lord on the shore. And Christians should abandon the church today, stay home and listen to the family radio program that he is providing and he will give them guidance. Now this is what I would classify as a modern day Jewish fable. This is the allegorical, this is the kind of stuff the Jews would do with text of scripture in the Old Testament. They come up with these fanciful interpretations of scripture. But all this is false. This is, this is, if it wasn’t so serious, it would be hilarious. You could basically laugh at all this. But this is the kind of stuff you have to be aware of. My point is this. People can undermine God’s truth by twisting the scriptures, putting a false interpretation on it. Remember that even Satan himself quoted the scripture, not properly, but he quoted the scripture to Jesus is in the temptation in the wilderness and attempt to get him to sin. So the truth can be undermined by false interpretation, these Jewish fables. It can be undermined by adding to the Word of God. He says here not only that they need to beware of these Jewish fables, but also he indicates to us the commandments of men. The commandments. Amen. Now, our Lord used this particular phrase when he spoke of the Jewish religious traditions that were raised to the same status as the Word of God. Look with me at first, or excuse me, at Matthew 15, and one to nine. Matthew chapter 15 and verses one to nine. Matthew 15, beginning with verse one, then came Jesus, then came to Jesus, then came to Jesus. Jesus, scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they wash not their hands when they eat bread. But he answered and said unto them, Why do you also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? For God commanded, saying, honor thy father and my mother, honor thy father and mother, and he that curseth father or mother, let him doeth. the death. But ye say, whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, it is a gift by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, and honoreth not his father or his mother. He shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandments of God of none of effect by your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah’s prophesy of you, saying, this people draw nigh unto me with their mouth and honoreth me with their lips but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines, the commandments of men. Now the scribes and the Pharisees here were claiming that Christ’s disciples had transgressed. They had sin because they didn’t wash their hands before they ate. Obviously, this discussion was not really about personal hygiene. This was about. the idea of what makes you pure in the eyes of God. And evidently they thought that washing of the hands was very key in this regard. But Jesus is indicating to us what is important is your heart state, not whether your hands are germ-free. You also notice that Christ points out how their sacred traditions were actually undermining the commandments of God. the example he uses is a violation of the Fifth Commandment with regard to honoring your father and your mother. It seems to me what the argument is here is that if you decided and you got mad against your parents and you say, instead of taking care of you, whatever I was going to use to take care of you, I’m giving it to the church, I’m giving it to the temple. That they would be free from the obligation, if they gave the money to God, see, they would be free of their obligation to take care of. of their parents. This despite the fact that their parents would suffer and certainly the insolence of their own spirit in this. Paul was well acquainted with all these humanly devised traditions and ideas because he was a Jew. He was raised in it. He knew all about it. And he tells you to beware of it. And Jesus here warns against it in this passage in Matthew 15. Because what they do is they take these humanly designed, commandments, traditions that they had, and make them equal to God’s commandments, to the word of God itself, so that they’re on equal footing. I wish I could report to you that no one ever does this today, but sadly it’s done all the time. Those who are engaged in legalism are always seemingly making up rules on who’s holy and who isn’t by, you know, maybe the clothes they wear, or the length of dress, or where you use buttons or hooks on your clothes, or whether you get involved in public swimming or not, or whether you consume pork, or whatever the case may be. Now, you may have reasons why you don’t do some of these things, and that’s fine, but you don’t have a thus say of the Lord. You don’t have anybody, any reason to elevate that to a level of what the scripture tells us. I personally do not go to the public beach and swim. It’s not because I have God’s commandment that I can’t go to the public beach and swim. But personally, with the way the swimsuits are and everything else, I personally would stay away. I just wouldn’t go there because of that. But I can’t command somebody and say, well, God says you can’t do this. But we’re talking about undermining the Word of God by the commandments of men. I have to talk about the government. Roman Catholic Church. Because if anyone today does this, it’s the Roman Catholic Church. Because if you look at their authority, it is human tradition plus the Word of God. That’s how they look at it. With human tradition on the level of the Word of God. Equal footing. The very same thing that Jesus condemns and describes in the Pharisees is exactly what the Roman Catholics teach. Consider the doctrines taught by the Roman Catholic Church. at the worship of Mary. She’s almost elevated as the fourth person of the Holy Trinity. Immaculate conception of Mary. That somehow rather she’s free from original and personal sin. The sacred authority of the Pope. That he has, he gives out divine communications equal to the Word of God. The praying for to dead saints. Again, we’re undermining the… mediation work of Jesus Christ, the one mediator. The miracle of the mass where the bread and the wine actually become the body of Christ. Another sacrifice of Christ is taking place. Now, it’s interesting, if you ever read, I don’t know if you’ve ever read a Roman Catholic track. But I have read several Roman Catholic tracks. I didn’t even know they had Roman Catholic tracks, but evidently they do. And this one was on tradition. I thought, well, this ought to be good. They quoted Second Third. Thessalonians 2.15. Brother, stand fast, hold the traditions which he have been taught. See? They say you should be following their traditions. That’s what Paul says. Now, the moment you realize that they didn’t actually quote the rest of the verse, which says, whether by word or our epistle, it makes a difference. What kind of traditions we’re talking about here? We’re talking about scriptural traditions. We’re not talking about human, man, made traditions. But you know, It’s whatever is convenient to undermine men. What Paul stated orally, he wrote down in the letters to the churches. So when he says about keeping tradition, he’s talking about what he has taught them to do. In other words, this is a commandment from the Lord that he’s giving. There’s nothing new here to discover. There’s no elevation of traditions to the Word of God. So the Roman Catholic world traditions contradict the scripture. scriptures, they’re man-made, they’re unbiblical, they’re unreliable, often contradictory, by the way. And so you should be aware of the problem of God’s truth being undermined. False interpretation, and then elevation of some type of tradition to that of Scripture itself. We’re undermining by adding to the Word of God. Secondly, you should be aware of the danger of God’s truth, being undermined. That turn from the truth, he says. To turn away is language which pictures someone turning their back on things that he dislikes. The thing that came to mind was a little child and has spinach on the plate, and a child doesn’t want to eat the spinach, looks at it, it’s yucky, and they’re going, they don’t even want to look at. They turn their face away. The dangerous effect of listening to Jewish fables and the commandant, of man is it causes you to dislike, maybe even loathe the truth, to turn from it. Satan uses false interpretation of Scripture and man-made laws to overthrow the faith of some. As we read in 2 Timothy chapter 4 verses 3 and 4, he says, you turn from the truth under these fables. You want to have teachers, because you had itching ears and so forth, to tell you the smooth things, the things you wanted to hear. Sadly, there are those who professed to. be followers of Christ, but have never experienced a work of grace in their hearts, and they can be turned. They can become apostate. They turn away from the truth being snared by these false teachers. My friends, we should realize it’s an awful judgment of God to become an apostate. If you read the scriptures, for example, in 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2, the Bible says, because they didn’t have a love for the truth, for this cause, God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie, that they might all be damned who believe not the truth, but had pleasure and unrighteousness. To not believe the truth, to hate the truth, or to not appreciate the truth, is to be willing to follow after false teachers to believe a strong delusion that comes along. Thus it is with false doctrine. My friend, it comes along. and it undermines you and turns you from the truth. If you have ever studied some of the origin of the cults, you will find someone who rejected the truth and invented doctrine of their own. Charles Taze Russell, who was the founder of the Jehovah Witnesses, was born in Pittsburgh. He was someone who rejected the truth. and invented doctrines to his or own liking. His parents were Presbyterian. He was taught the catechism as a child. He disliked intensely, though, doctrines that were taught by the church, in particular, predestination and eternal punishment. By the time he was 16, he says he was a vile skeptic. He eventually found a small group of Seventh-day in Venice to meet with, as he put it, as he put it, to see if the handful who met there had anything more sensible to offer than the creeds of the great churches. He’s looking for something else. Having rejected the truth, having believed the lie, he starts a cult, he leads multitudes down the path to destruction, a perfect illustration of our text of turning away from the truth as we see here in our text. Now, you need to be preserved from turning away from the truth. A couple of thoughts in this regard before we close. Foster a love for the truth of God. If you don’t count the doctrines of the Word of God as precious, then you’re more readily able to cast them aside. A love of the truth is necessary. Otherwise, you can be drawn away from it very easily. You must consider the loss of truth. truth, more harmful than the loss of your goods, your position in life, your liberty, and even your life. Many years ago, some influential people who helped finance John Gill’s ministry in London, England, went to pay the Goat Yard pastor a visit. And they gave due notice of their financial power. and how they had been supporting him so much. Made it quite plain. They didn’t want him to publish a refutation of a work by Dr. Abraham Taylor who refused to believe and opposed our eternal union with Christ. And if he did, these wealthy supporters said they were going to withdraw all his financial support that they’ve been providing and he would do without. and he would not have enough money to provide for himself in the ministry. I like Gil what he said. Here’s what he replied. Don’t tell me a losing. I value nothing in comparison of gospel truths. I’m not afraid to be poor. And he wrote the book, The doctrines of God’s everlasting love to his elect and their eternal union with Christ in 1732. That’s the kind of attitude we have to have. That we’re going to stand by the truth. no matter what we counted too precious to give up. Secondly, never call into question the truth of God’s word. How was Eve deceived by saying, but by undermining it, calling into question whether this was true or not, what God had said to her? This is how Satan operated. One of the areas you find heavily assaulted today is the area of creation. You know, our whole society is so promoted on promoting evolution. in every aspect that they don’t even want, if you even believe in creation, they don’t want to even give you a voice. Sadly, some even in the Christian community, are swayed by this teaching. You can’t watch a documentary or read an article on animal life or a man without the fable being strongly promoted. And it’s weaved its way into Christian theology. We have what was known as the literary frame. framework theory where there’s not literally six days in which God created heavens in the Europe. It allows for evolutionary thinking to come into play. You’re considered ignorant if you deny the theistic evolution. The so-called evolutionists have their arguments and so-called data to use against the Bible’s straightforward account. Each day is, you know, we’re told it is thousands of years in length. I kind of like what the scripture says. The evening and the morning were the first day. The evening of morning were the second day. It seems pretty obvious to me what he’s talking about. And when he gives the law and he talks about the work week and the day of rest, he uses the creation week and he says, six days show you labor, just like I did when I created and a seventh day you rest, just like I did. It means nothing. That statement needs absolutely nothing if the creation account allows for this literary framework theory. Now, just because you may not understand how scientific information accords with scripture, don’t turn away from the truth. I’ll tell you this much. In many instances, scientific research is quite biased. Dating methods are questionable, often contradictory. Stick with the one who doesn’t lie, as Titus has told us. or as Paul has told Titus, stick with the one who was there, is the only one that was there, when creation came into being and he can tell us what he did. Don’t call into question God’s word. Lastly, don’t be indifferent to God’s truth. You are rooted and grounded in the truth. You can’t be indifferent to the vital doctrines of Scripture. I believe in the doctrines of grace wholeheartedly. Some perhaps don’t believe that it’s important, whether you’re a Calvinist or whether you’re an Armenian, but they fail to recognize as one is the truth and one is a lie. One honors God, and one allows for the exultation of man. Can you be indifferent to Christ’s death and say it doesn’t really matter whether his sacrifice actually saves or just makes salvation possible? Can people perish for whom Christ died? Or that the Holy Spirit is not really omnipotent? we teach irresistible grace, but is it true that man can checkmate God’s purposes because he has free will? And therefore the spirit who’s trying to save you can’t because you won’t let him. Or who chooses first in election, God or man? Does God only confirm man’s choice in election? We could go on and on. But you see the point here, I hope. These things are not in election. different. These things are important that we have right views on them. Well, the Roman legions mined under the massive walls of Jerusalem collapsed them and were able to rush in and capture the city. Satan and his agents are attempting to undermine God’s word. Bring down the wall of protection around us in order to harm the church. And so be aware of this danger. Many have turned away from the truth by these tactics, but don’t you be caught up in that same type of error. Well, let us close with a word.