Transcript

Centuries before mega-churches were built in the suburbs and introduced huge electric signs, churches attracted attention with cross-topped steeples and bells. The taller the steeple, the better. The louder the bell, the better.

So, once upon a time, there was a village church with a steeple that could be seen for miles around. It was perfect, except for one thing—the bell wouldn’t ring.

The church leaders invited people from all around to try their hands at remedying the problem—but to no avail. One day a small fellow came to the church and announced to the pastor, “I can make the bell ring.” The pastor said, “Okay, try it.”

So the man climbed up to the base of the belfry in the steeple, took three steps back, and then ran into the bell with his face.

BONG! The bell rang, and he was hired on the spot. One windy Sunday, as the little man ran toward the bell to ring it, the wind moved it, causing the small bell ringer to fall out of the steeple and onto the ground below.

As a crowd gathered, the pastor asked, “Does anyone know this fellow’s name?” Just then a woman bent low to look at him and then replied, “I don’t know his name, but his face sure rings a bell.”

The things Paul writes about here sure ring a bell, and ring true for us as much as when he wrote them to Titus. And that’s God’s Word, it is timeless, true and relevant always.

We are confronted with unruly deceivers, empty talkers, who are only interested in money today too. False teachings and false teachers has been, and always will be a threat to the church. It was in Paul’s day, and it continues to be our challenge today.

The realm of truth is not a playground, but a battleground. And it takes courage and God’s strength to stand. Wherever God sows the truth, Satan quickly shows up to sow lies.

We have an aggressive adversary who attacks the truth and the church, and seeks to subtly lead people away from the all-sufficiency of Christ.

Satan is the master of deception, and he uses people who lack truth, but are intelligent and know how to “win friends and influence people.”

And they move among the church seeking to cause people to turn their eyes off of Christ and onto them, and onto some new teaching, or an old teaching with new packaging.

But a trained eye can spot them. And Paul’s instruction here to Titus tells us what clues to look for, so we will not be led astray from Christ or His message of grace for today.

Titus 1:10: “For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision.”

The word “For” links verse 10 to verse 9 before it. And we find that the reason elders and leaders in the church need to be men of the Word and holding fast to it, is because there are “many” who are not, because there are “many” false teachers.

Paul has nothing good to say about false teachers. He states that their 3 most prominent characteristics are that they are “unruly and vain talkers and deceivers.”

The word “unruly” speaks of “rebellious men,” or literally “unaccountable men.” Those whom Paul speaks of in Crete refused to submit themselves to any oversight or to be accountable to anyone, not willing to put themselves under anyone’s authority.

That’s something to watch for in the Church, men who teach and preach, and who might go all over the country doing it, but they have no accountability to a ministry.

False teachers oftentimes establishes themselves as the authority. This is often fueled by the adoration and devotion of undiscerning followers.

Spiritual teachers are dangerous when they set themselves up as the sole source and authority of spiritual truth for their followers, even not permitting or recommending that people listen to anyone else teach.

We should beware of teachers who give themselves titles of spiritual leadership, but are accountable to no one who could remove that title or their position should they fail to honor it according to God’s Word.

Even the Apostle Paul was accountable to the church at Antioch who sent him out on his journeys. In Acts we see how he would return to give reports of his missionary journeys to that church. No one, and no spiritual leader, outgrows the need for accountability in the Lord’s work. So we should beware of teachers who will not put themselves under authority.

The second thing we should watch for is: “Vain talkers” which speaks of being an empty talker. J. Vernon McGee refers to them as “empty chatterers.” They talk and talk, and they’re good at it, but they don’t really say anything. They excel in talking but not doing.

Vain talkers speak with smoothness, they are captivating and persuasive, but they have little or nothing on which to base their teaching. They’re literally full of hot air.

What they say impresses, but it has no real content or substance. And they cleverly present personal opinion as God’s truth. As it’s been said, “You can always spot those who don’t teach the truth, by the way they say absolutely nothing beautifully.”

There is a character in Pilgrim’s Progress called, “Talkative.” Christian and Faithful are walking along, and Talkative comes up and engages them in dialogue.

His conversation is wide and varied and even seems to show that he had considerable knowledge of the Bible. Faithful is enjoying the conversation but notices that Christian is quiet and walking several feet away.

While Faithful likes Talkative; Christian is more perceptive and says, “This with whom you’re so impressed will beguile with his tongue 20 people who don’t know him.”

He says that Talkative is from his town and has a reputation for being all talk, but very rude and ugly in his behavior, telling Faithful that “Everything he has lies in his tongue, and making a noise with it is his religion.”

Faithful eventually sees that Talkative is full of words but empty in his heart. Christian advises Faithful to begin a serious discussion about “the saving grace of God.”

Sure enough, when Faithful does, Talkative doesn’t want to talk about the truth, God’s grace, or what’s really important and he says goodbye.

There are many false teachers who may be likable, but are all talk, and full of words but empty in their heart, being spiritually empty of the grace of God and His truth and His life in them. And their words and talk are deceptive and dangerous.

And Paul says these false teachers are “deceivers.” They deceive others because they themselves are deceived by Satan.

“Deceivers” is not the common Greek word for deceiver in the Bible, it’s actually a compound word meaning: mind-deceivers or mind-misleaders. The battle for the truth is the battle for the mind.

And deceivers seek the mind and engage in mind deception and control. They play mind games, they put people under bondage and make them live in fear and worry.

They pass their error off as divine truth, and they’ll often deceptively couch their teaching in spiritual terms or in language that many would recognize from Sunday school.

Their error is cleverly disguised. They may even use the Bible to prove a point, but they twist Scripture or divorce verses from their context or their dispensational context, to teach what they want rather than what the Bible actually says. It reminds us that in order to protect ourselves from deception we need to know the Word and know it well.

Tony Evans: “Duck hunters use decoys. Today, these decoys have gotten pretty fancy. The decoys quack like ducks, move like ducks, look like ducks and act like ducks.

“In fact, the ducks think that they are ducks and the real ducks end up being dead ducks because they can’t tell what’s a real duck.

“There are many decoys out there and they move people away from faith in Christ. We must not focus on the person or on how they speak or perform but on the truth.

“We must be on guard for decoys moving all around us, talking like the real thing, looking like the real thing, acting like the real thing in order to deceive, or to gain a following, or to gain money. Or spiritually speaking we’ll end up as dead ducks.”

The threat to the churches on Crete came especially from those whom Paul called “the circumcision,” a title assigned to the Jewish people, and here Paul is talking about Judaizers who were requiring the law to be saved and to live by.

The Law was once the truth of God, but now it turns men from the truth of grace. If you obeyed the Law when it was part of God’s program you obeyed the truth, but when the Galatians turned from grace back to the Law, Paul had to ask them what hindered them “that ye should not obey the truth” in Galatians 3:1.

Jewish teachers in Crete were imposing Judaism and the law on others and teaching Jewish traditions and legalism, requiring the law and circumcision to be saved, rather than salvation by grace through faith alone in Christ.

Even still today, false teachers say that Christ is not enough. The danger of religion, works, law, and legalism is still prevalent today and required by those who teach false, unsound doctrine and put people in bondage.

Titus 1:11 says, “Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.”

Paul says false teachers’ “mouths must be stopped,” they should be silenced. The word means “to muzzle” or “to gag.”

Paul’s mandate to Titus could not have been more plain: Titus needed to silence them. The job of Titus was not to debate or discuss, but to make them stop.

In our time of religious tolerance, this doesn’t sound tolerant. But it’s necessary and it’s for the good of God’s people and the lost. Titus needed to protect the Lord’s people from the lies they were hearing and being exposed to, and to prevent the false teachers from spreading deceptive harmful false doctrines among the local churches in Crete.

These false teachers, Paul says, “subvert whole houses.” The word “subvert” is from the word used to describe what the Lord did when He overthrew and overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple.

The faith of whole families were being turned upside down and overthrown by their unhealthy, false doctrine. False teachers often go family to family or house to house.

False teachers seek out people who don’t know their Bibles well, who have little or no involvement in a church and seek to draw them in to their web of deception.

Sometimes home Bible studies are what these teachers look for and even plant themselves or their people in, to come in and introduce strange, different doctrines.

And all this, the deception, empty talk, the subverting and overthrowing the faith of whole houses, and teaching things they ought not, is all done for “filthy lucre’s sake,” for sordid gain, for dishonest, financial gain.

Most false teachers do what they do for money. They have evil, selfish motives.

They prey on people searching for the truth, people who are trying to fill the emptiness of their hearts. They prey on hurting people who need the Lord.

And their actions, God says thru Paul in v. 16, are “abominable,” or detestable, disgusting. And as God sees it, so we should see it, and we should rightly be disgusted with the character and detest the conduct of false teachers who prey on the needy.

False teachers often try to conceal their real motives but they want people’s money. Many use religion to fill their pockets.

The following is called “The Creed of the Greedy Preacher.” “The loot is my shepherd, I shall not work. It maketh me to lie in green pastures. It leadeth me beside the Riviera waters. It restoreth my bank balance.

“It leadeth me in the paths of crookedness for my fame’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of debt I will fear no evil, for my donors and contributors are with me. My Rolexes and fundraising staff, they comfort me.

“Thou preparest a table before me at a ritzy restaurant in the presence of my executives. Thou anointest my head with hair gloss; my cup of cash runneth over.

“Surely expensive goodies and my Mercedes shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in my mansion with its tennis court forever and ever.”

Some of these preachers and teachers justify their luxurious lifestyles by claiming, “I teach prosperity and I live prosperity.”

They can even adopt a spirit of entitlement and demand financial support. Or they’ll promise the blessing of God on people’s lives to get their money.

“Not given to filthy lucre” is a requirement for an elder (v. 7). A true servant of God does not minister for personal gain; he ministers like Christ with other’s highest good at heart, he ministers to reach the lost, he ministers to help others grow in their faith.

Titus 1:12-13: “One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.

“This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith.”

Paul quotes “a prophet of their own,” or a philosopher of Crete by the name of Epimenides who lived around 600 B.C. This pagan poet, referring to his own people, said that the Cretians were always liars, evil beasts, and slow bellies, or lazy gluttons.

And then Paul said this false prophet’s words were true! Paul uses here a cultural inside joke, as it were, to make a point about the conduct of false teachers on Crete. They didn’t just lie some of the time, they were “always liars”. They were not just beasts, but “evil beasts.” They were not just gluttons, but lazy gluttons.

They were dangerous, predatory animals, preying on the vulnerable, lying and deceiving them for gain, so they could live lazy, gluttonous lifestyles.

“Evil beasts” was used to describe the venomous viper that latched on to Paul’s hand in Malta in Acts 28:4. And so false teachers are like a dangerous viper who often strike unexpectedly and their teachings are venomous, evil, and harmful.

The stakes are very high in the church and with spiritual matters. With spiritual truth and spiritual error, we’re talking about people’s ETERNAL destinies and what people believe to be saved from the lake of fire.

We’re talking about believers being led away from the truth of Christ and God’s grace to living by religious rules, manmade traditions, and satanic error.

Therefore, Paul’s instructions here are not mellow or laid back. For the sake of the church and for the sake of the lost, Paul instructs Titus to stop the mouths of false teachers. Now he says: “rebuke them,” not softly, but “sharply.”

To “rebuke them sharply” is a term that comes from a compound Greek word that means “to cut with an ax.” It indicated a cut that took place with penetrating force. This was not something that was to be taken lightly.

Titus wasn’t told to give the opposing view equal time or to let them have their say; they were to be confronted, rebuked sharply, and silenced, to protect the saints.

The false teachers needed to be dealt with firmly, and with the penetrating force of the Word of God which is sharper than any twoedged sword, and pierces “even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. 4:12).

The rebuke should be prompt and forthright, but it is not for the purpose of just being vindictive. The goal and motivation of the rebuke is restoration.

Paul tells Titus to rebuke sharply “so that they will be sound in the faith,” so that they may see the error of their ways and beliefs and be rescued out of it and become sound or spiritually healthy in the faith of Paul’s gospel for today.

Titus 1:14-16: “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.”

Paul tells Titus in verse 14, to not give heed, to pay no attention to, to not give any credence to Jewish fables or myths or to the commandments of men, that do nothing but turn men away from the truth of God’s Word.

Most of us are familiar with Greek mythology, knowing such names as Zeus, Apollo, Aphrodite, and Hercules. The Jews had ancient myths and folklore as well, very loosely based on Israel’s history and even Scripture.

Many became preoccupied with legend rather than truth on Crete, and Paul says Titus should not be giving these fables the time of day because they lead people away from Christ.

Jewish myths and fables were circulating on the island of Crete, and today we are bombarded by fictional stories and fables regarding spiritual things being told in books, movies, documentaries, websites, which cause people to “turn from the truth” of Scripture.

The problem of spiritual fables and myths is still with us today, and it’s still something Satan uses to “turn from the truth.”

This is something we need to be cautious with in the Christian life that we don’t allow fables or fictional stories about spiritual things to confuse us or lead us away from the truth of God’s Word. We need to be holding fast to the faithful Word.

Paul writes, “unto the pure all things are pure.” Now this statement should never be applied to things we know are evil, which unfortunately has been done before. In its context, Paul says this in regards to “the commandments of men.”

The Law teachers in Crete were telling the believers that the Law said certain meats were unclean or impure, so Paul responded by saying that to pure, saved people under grace, people like the believers in Crete’s churches, all things are pure (1:15).

Some were imagining, as they do today, that they were somehow pure because of their traditional external religious observances and rules regarding food and drink, and in their fastings, washings, and so on.

Some were promoting a life of legalism and strict abstinence from all that they considered impure by their own ideas, commandments, and traditions.

Paul says that to those who are pure in Christ by faith all things are pure. External legalistic restrictions make no difference as to our salvation and our purity in Christ. We are pure in Him, we can’t be made purer than we are in Christ. And there is liberty under grace with the food we eat. It’s all pure.

As the principle of I Corinthians 8:8 says, “But meat [food] commendeth us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not are we the worse.”

But to one who is internally impure without Christ, “defiled and unbelieving,” they corrupt everything they touch and they will not be made pure before God by any restrictions they put on themselves.

Being impure, the minds and consciences of the false teachers in Crete were defiled and corrupt, so their thinking was all wrong, and so they shouldn’t be trusted in anything they teach or command that people should or shouldn’t do or believe.

And even though they professed to know God, even though they may speak the spiritual talk, their corrupt actions evidenced their true natures and the impurity of their heart, that they deny God and do not belong to Him.

The ungodly works and life of false teachers betray that they merely profess to understand spiritual truths but that they do not possess the truth they claim. And they are actually abominable, or detestable, disobedient, and unfit and disqualified for any good work.

God want the opposite from us in much of what we see in this passage. Transformation for our lives is often the exact opposite of what we see in life and how we might have been in the past.

While we see examples of those who are “unruly,” being transformed by grace, God would have us accountable and submissive to Him and His Word.

While there are vain, empty talkers in life, as we are transformed by grace, God wants our speech to full of God’s words and His teaching, things that are important, things of substance and meaning, and for our speech to be gracious and encouraging to others.

There are deceivers and liars in this world, but living a transformed life, we are to be people of truth, and we’re not to be lazy gluttons, but hard workers for the Lord.

We’re not to be like many who believe spiritual fables and fictional stories, as we are transformed by grace we are to be people of faith in the Word of God.

We don’t follow the commandments of men, we follow our Savior according to His heavenly ministry and by His message of grace for today.

We don’t just profess that we know God, we know Him through a personal relationship with Him and through His Word.

We are not “unto every good work reprobate” or unfit or disqualified. Now having trusted Christ as Savior, we are qualified to be people of good works, and so our transformed lives as the Book of Titus teaches us, should be full of good works and service and labor for the honor and glory of our God and Savior.