You're listening to the teaching ministry of Harvest Fellowship Church in Boyertown, Pennsylvania. You can find out more about us on the web at www.harvestfellowshipchurch.org. We pray that through our teaching, we may present everyone mature in Christ. Please take your Bible and stand for the reading of God's word. Our New Testament reading and sermon text today is from Paul's letter to Titus, Titus chapter 1. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach. One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beast, lazy gluttons. This testimony is true, therefore rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth To the pure all things are pure but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. They profess to know God but they deny him by their works. They are detestable disobedient and unfit for any good work. May God richly bless the reading of his word. Let's ask the Lord for his wisdom as we now go to his word. Our Father in heaven, we bow before you this morning. And Lord, we do want to first pray a prayer of intercession for this many, many people who have been afflicted by this devastating hurricane. And Lord, what a great loss of property. infrastructure and amidst all the need that these people have to rebuild and recover. Oh Lord we pray that it might cause many of them who are lost to think of the fragility of their souls and how quickly this life is passing them by. So we ask Lord that your hand of mercy will be upon them. and also that the gospel declaration will go forth in these affected areas. We pray today here for the ministry of your word. I pray, O Lord, for those who might be among us who are downcast today, who are struggling, who need the word of God to be the balm to their soul. I pray for those who are marching forward in your word that this word today would encourage their hearts. For those who may be struggling with false doctrine, O Lord, we pray that they will indeed seek and pursue the truth. And for those who are outside the kingdom, those outside the city gates who do not know you, O Lord, we pray that today would be the day of their salvation. Now help us as we look to your word. We ask, O Spirit of God, and we pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Alright, last week, and I do want to give just a very quick recap of last week for those who may not have joined us, we looked at Titus chapter 1 verses 5 through 9, and we looked at two different things. We looked at the measure of a blameless man, blameless character, God's measure for him, and we saw that there was 14 traits. A man who has a sound home, a man with a sound mind, and a man of sound doctrine. And because that seemed to be pretty overwhelming, I think it's overwhelming, we then talked about, well, how does a man develop such blameless character? And we said that this is not unattainable, but rather it's attainable because of the work of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who guides and leads men to spiritual maturity. And we laid forth those four necessary foundational elements, which are the word of God, prayer, the ordinary means of grace, which is coming to the gathering of the saints, participating in worship, the Lord's Supper, and fourthly, spending time with people who desire the same things, same spiritual desires. And so, as you think back to what Paul said to Titus, which was, I want you to set things in order, Now Paul is going to build on what we would call the ableness or the ability of the overseer and that overseer has to be able in two things, the ableness to give instruction in sound doctrine and the ableness to rebuke those who contradict it. And both of those tasks require the same thing, the same sure foundation which is this, the trustworthy word of God. I want to try to demonstrate something here and we'll see how this goes. But I just want to point out something here. So as I walk away from the pulpit here, this nice new sturdy pulpit, which hides when I shift my weight around with my feet. But what do I not have in my hands right now? I don't have the word of God. Now don't misunderstand what I'm saying here. My point is not that pastors who like to walk around from the pulpit are walking away from the Word of God. And one of the reasons that I say that is look here in this drawer here is it's the Word of God. Yes, I put that there ahead of time. So what is the point that I'm trying to make here? Is it that a man of God must walk everywhere with a firm grasp to a physical Bible? That isn't the point that I'm trying to make. What I'm trying to point out to you, when Paul talks here to Titus about grasping onto the Word of God, that it is whether the man has a physical Bible with him or not, his heart has a proximity to the Word of God. What do I mean by that? So we're not talking about a physical proximity. I could circle the room without the Bible, but we're talking about a heart proximity to the word of God. So the word of God is always close to this man's heart. Every situation in life is governed by the wisdom of this word. Every page has been poured over in study and in prayer. Every doctrine, where does it come from? It's informed by the truths of God's word. every behavior guided by its precepts. And all the while this man has an overarching belief that this word here, it's inerrant, there's no errors in it, that it's sufficient. Sufficient for what? Sufficient for us to be able to know who God is and how to be saved. This man believes that this is God's inspired words. That's what it means to cling to the Word of God. So as we think of that verse 9 which sets us up to look at verses 10 through 16, why is this so important? Why is it so necessary for these men to cling to the Word of God? And it's this, it's that in the face of spiritual danger, or we could even call that disruptive rebellion, that it is the men of blameless character who cling in heart, in practice, to the word of God, the trustworthy God, they must stand up. They must combat the venomous threat. of the threat of false doctrine. How are they going to do that? They're going to teach healthy soul saving doctrine, they're going to refute unhealthy soul destroying doctrine. If you remember that parable that Jesus gave, the wheat is sown right alongside the tares or the wheat. So it's there. The threat is there. And where God sows his word, the devil shows up and he sows discord. He sows untruth. He sows lies. And so there's a real ongoing danger. Notice it's an ongoing danger. We don't get to put it to rest once. It's an ongoing danger that God's overseers must be on guard for. They must respond to. by helping people recognize and identify God's truth. And so it's this that God's men must be standing for truth, holding firmly to the truth. And so too must God's people stand alongside of them as they recognize, as they believe and hold to that which is true. So I've broken this text this morning verses 10 through 16 into the three points that you may have seen in your bulletin if you have a bulletin and that's one realizing the danger, two responding to false teachers and three recognizing what is true. And so when Paul tells these things to Titus, the first thing that Titus has to do is realize this is a real thing, this is a real danger. So let's look back then again to verses 10, and I want to read just to the beginning of 13, where Paul says, For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach. One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. This testimony is true. So why is it that God requires such necessary virtues in his elders? Why is it so necessary for them to cling to the word? They need to see that there's a real danger. So within realizing this danger, first I want to point out this description of the danger, define the danger, and that is false teachers. And notice here Paul says, he doesn't say there's one or two. He says there's many, many. So that shows us the size and scope of the threat. Insubordinate is the first word he uses. This is talking about people who are flagrant lawbreakers. Rebellious is a key word that goes with that, rebellious. Now think back to what Paul had said about the overseer's children, that they need to be respectful, that they need to be in subordination to their father in the household. These are the spiritual children who are insubordinate, they've rejected the authority of the church, they've refused to submit to the word. And so in a sense these are people who are in need of household discipline by the overseers. but they're also described as empty talkers, which is quite an interesting phrase. It could be something as comical to us as people who are windbags, but also there's this sense of smooth, flattering talk. Have you ever heard someone who preached and you could tell that they were trying to appeal to their audience through smooth, flattering talk? These are people who have fruitless teaching. There's no health giving substance to that which they proclaim. And so what they teach is unprofitable and useless. But they are, as Paul describes here, they're deceivers. These are people who are deceivers and they're deceivers because they're self-deceived. They're self-deceived misleaders, seducers, and they are within the church. Paul's not saying, hey, these people are far away and they're kind of going to come and set up in town. No, they're in the church. Titus has a problem that he has to deal with in the church. These are people who claim to teach truth but they're instead peddling serious error. These are rebels who are teaching things and through their teaching they are leading people astray. And Paul says here, he says especially, or we could use the word particularly, Or he's saying here in other words, he's not saying you have a segment of people and then I just want you to specifically focus on this circumcision party. He's saying that's predominantly who I'm talking about, the circumcision party, the Jewish teachers. Now you might have asked yourself as you thought of this, if you put together the circumcision party being Jews, were there Jews in Crete? And the answer is yes. If you remember during the day of Pentecost we see that mentioned in Acts chapter 2 verse 11 that Cretans were there on the day of Pentecost who had traveled to Jerusalem, Jews who had come to Jerusalem. And these false teachers they probably in the context of Crete here would have regarded their circumcision as a mark of superior excellence. This is why you should listen to me other Cretan believers because I am a circumcised Jew. So first Paul describes this danger of false teachers to Titus but then he goes on to reveal their character and I'm going to jump slightly in the text because I want to go to this quote that Paul uses. He describes their character by applying a quote and it is attributed by many to a man named Epimenides. Epimenides was someone who lived in the 6th century BC. So this is several centuries earlier. This is Paul quoting this teacher and poet who said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. And this is a man talking about his own countrymen. He's not standing afar and saying, I come from a different place. He said, I am a Cretan. And here's what I have to say about my own countrymen. And over the course of several centuries, this statement that he had made had proved out to be generally true. In fact, the Greeks had fashioned a word, the word was cretize. And if they said that you were cretizing, that means you're a double dealer, you're a liar, you are a deceiver. Think about that word liar. How often we see that in Scripture, a liar is neither a lover of that which is good, upright, or holy. In fact, to be a liar is the plight of everyone outside of Christ. In Psalm 116.11 you see that talked about that all mankind are liars and according to Jesus in John 8.44 they're following after the father of lies. So this statement here calls the Cretans liars, evil beasts. So it's not just this characteristic of being a liar but now there's this image of these vicious, pernicious monsters, untamed, wild, brutish character we could say. So instead of acting as they ought to, as sheep who are led by a shepherd, they're acting as wild beasts, as if they're wild pigs wallowing in the mire, in the dirt of sin, of pleasure. They're self-willed individuals. This is the exact opposite of the elder. Not a self-willed person. These are self-willed people. They're rebellious against authority. But thirdly, they're gluttons, lazy gluttons. They're filled in their bellies with lies and the love of money. They have no spiritual appetite and therefore they live for the worldly and fleshly desires of this world. They live it up at the expense of their followers. Have you ever seen a ministry and perhaps you've seen it on TV or on the internet and the person speaking, the person preaching is telling the people why it's necessary for them to have a personal jet to travel around the world. Where is that coming from? It's coming from the expense of their followers. And that's their desire. Their desire is the things of this world at the expense of their followers. Maybe it's a mansion. You can fill in the blank there. But what Paul does, he takes this statement by one of their own and he says, I've found this to be generally true as I apply it to a certain people group and that's the false teachers who are among you. These Cretan false teachers, these people who have departed from the truth for sordid gain and also we could say to their disciples, to the influenced, those who have been influenced by their teaching and that's what I want to look at. as the last part of the first point here is the influence of these false teachers. And Paul says that they are upsetting or overturning whole families. They're ruining whole families through their false teaching. We look at 2 Timothy 2, and as you read through Titus, you could just go back and read through 1 and 2 Timothy and see so many comparisons between the two. But in 2 Timothy 2, 17, Paul's talking about some men who are like this. He said, among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus who have swerved from the truth, they departed from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. Hey, you missed out. Sorry, it's already happened. And what was the result? They are upsetting. They're overturning the faith of some. Now when Paul here says entire families, I think what he's really pointing to is churches. This is where the churches were generally meeting, in home churches. So entire small home churches are being upset. They're turning aside from the faith and this was happening. This was a reality in Crete. And guess what? Where we live, the time we live, it's no different. We see the same things today. This isn't a once and done thing that happened in history. And so I would ask you, do we see, do we realize this danger of how convincing and how effective these false teachers can be? Because Paul says that they do this through the means or through the teaching of shameful gain. They're doing this for shameful gain and they're doing this with an authoritative tone. They're not begging, they're doing it in a convincing way, an authoritative way and they're doing it for the wrong reasons. Not for love but dishonest gain. Again the exact opposite of the overseer who must not be greedy for gain. And Paul says they're teaching things that they ought not to teach. Not the trustworthy word of God. It's not coming from here. And they themselves are men who have been deceived by Satan. So there's this need to realize the danger. that there are many rebellious deceivers out there and why is it dangerous? Because they have real influence. They have real influence among the sheep and their evil doctrine if it's left unchecked will ruin or we could say will shipwreck the faith of some. And so knowing that they have this evil character in their hearts, knowing that these Cretan false teachers had a widespread influence and Titus was facing these things, well what does Paul then tell Titus? This is how you need to respond. And that brings us to number two then, responding to false teachers. So let's pick back up in verse 13 where he says, therefore rebuke them sharply. that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth." Now back in verse 11, Paul had said to Titus, these rebel heretics must be silenced. It's necessary to silence them really at all costs. You need to stop their mouths. This is not a, hey, can't we all just get along? Peace is the most important thing here. No. He says you've got to deal with this Titus. You've got to stop their mouths. It's this picture because he's already defined them or described them as wild animals. Now we've got this muzzle that needs to be placed upon their evil mouths. When he says silencing, there's a number of things that Titus can do. He can personally admonish people one on one. He can sharply reprimand people. He can refute their false teaching by proclaiming that which is true, focused on the gospel. He can prevent them from teaching in the churches and if needed they can be cast out from the communion of the church. But I want to look here in these two verses at the type of response first. First the type of response and that is where he says to Titus because of the character, because of their influence, Titus you need to set an example for these other Cretan overseers. And in a way you also need to set the example for the overseers who are going to come for the next thousands of years until Christ returns. And so you have to decisively respond to the danger. How? He says by rebuking them sharply, pointing out and correcting wrongdoing and keep on doing it over and over and over. Now a great question that comes up here in this text is who is the them that Paul's talking about here? Is he talking specifically about the false teachers or is he talking about the people who are deceived by the false teachers? And I think in a sense it's both. because if I speak to a false teacher it's going to be with an earshot of those who are following after them. But I think here in the text, which is a little bit different from the context of what he tells Timothy, I think in the context of what Paul is after here is the good of those who have been influenced by the false teachers. But these deceivers here, these are those who have rejected the true Christian faith. They are the ones who need to be silenced. It was pretty interesting as I was studying this in the very ancient kingdom of Siam they had a law that if you were convicted of telling a lie that they would sew your mouth shut. I don't know how far we'd make it in life with a law like that but it probably brought about a lot of truth telling. But this rebuking or the silencing that goes on ultimately it's for the benefit of those who are being deceived, for those who are being pulled away from the faith. And so that the believers, even the strong believers, might become all the more sound in their faith, healthy in their faith. And so he uses the word here sharply. Of all the times that we interact with people This is a rare thing. Most of our interactions should be filled with grace and mercy and kindness but this is to be a sharp rebuttal. For those who are disposed to follow after these false teachers they need to be shocked. So imagine if you're driving down the street at night and you see a house that's on fire. Are you going to pull over and just ring the doorbell, maybe politely knock on the door? Well, I don't know if anybody's here. I'll just keep driving. No, you're going to probably pound on that door. You're going to shout. You're going to do everything you can to make sure there's not people sleeping in that house and so that they don't die in the fire. And the same thing here is true for Titus. The same thing is true for the overseers is that this is the sharpness, the urgency that they need to expose the unfruitful works of darkness with the light of God's truth. And so there's this sharp response, there's a jarring response here but what's the result of it? What is the intended result of it? To be abrasive? To be a shock and awe kind of person? No, the result here Paul says is so that they may be sound, that they might be healthy in their faith, freed from error. and beginning to continue in spiritual health. In Timothy, Paul mentions that this teaching can be like gangrene. And if someone gets gangrene that just starts in a small area of their body, can you let it go? Well, I'm not going to worry about that. No it's going to spread. And in the same way false teachings that come into the church they start to spread. They might be initially a minor error or just a distortion of the truth. They might seem minimal, harmless types of things at first but ultimately they're going to spread and the result Paul says is devastating, a devastating consequence. And so the man of God then he must take the word of God, the sound doctrine of the word of God and it's as if it's this sharp knife cutting away the gangrene of this false doctrine. It might be painful but it's worth it. And so the goal here is a saving purpose. It's to return the deceived back to the pathway of life. In Proverbs 10 17 we see whoever heeds instruction is on the path to life but he who rejects reproof leads others astray. And Paul encourages Titus to let the deceived know that they have an obligation and that is, hey, don't pay attention to these things that are being taught to you. Don't pay any attention to, first he says, Jewish myths, this erroneous instruction that came from the circumcision party. This word could even be translated as fables. That's what Paul says is the things that they're peddling, they're fables. These are from people who have been trained in the religion, we could say, of shadows. They're still living in the understanding of the Old Testament. They don't understand all the things that Christ has done. And so they're living in the shadows, trying to force those shadows still upon the people of God. In Timothy there's an expression in 1 Timothy 1.4 of endless genealogies and Peter says in 2 Peter 1 verse 16 he calls them cleverly devised myths. What does that mean? They sound good, cleverly devised myths, they sound good. So these fables are in a sense it's this baited hook. I'm going to tell you something different about the Bible that you've never heard before. That's the sense of what it is. And now that I've got you on that hook, that's what the false teacher's objective is here, now I'm going to tell you that you have to do something as well. And that's what he says, it leads to these commands, which we could also just say are human orders, not godly orders, human orders. Now Paul doesn't tell us exactly what those things are and I think it's a good thing because we don't need to worry about, okay I'm just good with not doing those three things here that were a problem in the Cretan church. These can come in all forms of things and for them it may have been things like, hey you can't eat that food, hey you shouldn't be married, things like that or you need to follow this ceremonial law that God prescribed to the Jews in Leviticus. But remember what Jesus said in Matthew 15, he said it is not food that defiles a person, he says it is what proceeds from the heart that reveals who they really are, reveals their defilement. But put this into the context of what I preached about last week. So remember when I talked about reading the word of God. What if I had said, if you don't read the word of God for four hours a day I don't believe you're saved. That's an undue burden and it's not found in Scripture. Those types of things, it might sound good and that probably doesn't sound that great but these are the clever things that lure people in. You just have to check these boxes to attain holiness or righteousness with God. presents to people what we want a lot of times. I just want a list, and if I can check those boxes of this list, then I'll be right with God. To a lot of people at times, that sounds like a good thing. Here's your strategy to godliness. But it can even be much worse than that. Here's the prerequisite things that you have to do if you want to be saved. Oh you thought it was just grace alone? No there's a few more things, you didn't know that. Well let me tell you about those extra things, it's those types of things that these false teachers were introducing. And he goes on to say that the people who are introducing these man-made commands and peddling these myths are people who turned away from the truth, they've abandoned the word of God. These are the false teachers. We saw that in the Old Testament reading in Isaiah 65, we see a parallel of that of where God says, I held out my hands to a people and they turned away from me. And how did he define himself in that last verse that we read this morning? He calls himself the God of truth, the God of truth, the God who is truth. These men here, Paul talking about these false teachers, have turned away from the God of truth. Now, in whom do we find the revelation of God as truth? We find it in Jesus Christ himself. At the beginning of John, the Gospel of John, John 1.14, it says, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory. Gloria's of the only son from the father full of grace and truth. How do we see the truth of God in Jesus Christ? And it's such a strong revelation in Jesus Christ that the writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 12 25 he says, see that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven." I ask you this morning, have you embraced the truth of the gospel? That Jesus is indeed the Savior of those who will repent of their sin, flee from their sin, falling upon the mercy and saying that there is mercy to be found in Jesus Christ? I can't save myself? That's the truth of God's word? Jesus says I am the way, the truth, and the life? Or have you abandoned this truth? Have you turned away from such truth? You know thinking about how clever false teaching is, is how attractively it's packaged. I was thinking yesterday about when you go to these stores, you go to a hardware store and you get to the front and they're selling sodas, chips, all sorts of things that I wasn't there for, but it can look enticing. You might think, oh, I would like to have a snack right now. It's so well packaged. Look, they even have the drinks in a nice cooler. It will be a cold drink. So there's an appeal of satisfaction that might appeal to your eyes, but there is no real substance there. These aren't things that are good for you. These aren't things that you intended to get. You didn't come here for this purpose. And that's how these mythical ideas are. They seem intriguing. The commandments might seem to be the spiritual solution to all your problems, but ultimately they distract or they even reject the free grace of the gospel. What's the result of that? It puts your soul in great peril. So what seemed to be good puts you in peril. And so the question then that we arrive at these last two verses is who then will recognize the truth? Are the deceivers, are they going to turn back to the truth? Will the deceived be restored to the truth? and what would be the evidence. So lastly let's look then at recognizing what is true. Let's look at verses 15 and 16. To the pure all things are pure but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. They profess to know God but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work. Again, strong words from Paul here. But firstly here I think in this first phrase, this first part of the verse 15, firstly he's talking about the undefiled believers. He's talking about those who are truly pure, those who have been made inwardly clean by the blood of the Lamb, those who know the truth, those who have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit of God, those who are actually walking in holiness. And so as they look at things that they've been said you can't do this or you better do that they see things properly, they see things through the eyes that are undefiled, they see things that are clean, that are innocent, they see that things that have been given by God such as marriage or food is good. 1 Timothy 4 verses 4 through 5, Paul's talking about that same topic. He says, "...for everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God in prayer." And so Paul says, who are the people who actually see these things? It's the people who have genuine faith, it's people who have a real love, it's people who have an authentic hope. And because they are the pure in heart, as Jesus talks about in the Sermon on the Mount, they are able to spiritually discern what is true and what is good because they have the Spirit of God working within them through the Word of God. And that is a strong contrast to the second group that he describes, which is the defiled unbelievers. The defiled. Who are the defiled? They're people who are impure. Jesus says, blessed are the pure. So these are the impure, impure in heart, immoral people. And how do we know they're unbelievers? Because it says that. Unbelieving. So they don't have faith. They're haters of the truth. Nothing to them is pure. there's no ritualistic practice that they're going to be able to come up with that's going to make pure what is impure in their eyes. And Paul says that their minds, in fact their minds and their consciences, so the way that they think about things through their mind and this faculty that's within them that distinguishes what is right from wrong, he says it's corrupt, it's contaminated. And so because of that, they're unable, they lack the ability to make proper moral judgments. And when they look at innocent and good things, they don't see what they should see. They see sin. They can't evaluate God's creation properly. But Paul sort of accelerates or you could say brings it to an even greater understanding because in this third category, so you take the defiled unbelievers and he sort of builds upon it to further describe these disqualified false teachers. He says they, these are the false teachers who have turned their backs upon the truth, he said they profess to know God. These false teachers who stand up are not saying, I'm a follower of Satan. They're saying, I follow God too. I follow the same God you do. I'll publicly acknowledge him with my mouth right now. So they claim to be intimately acquainted with God, the God of truth. And so they have this wonderful outward appearance. We see many times examples of that in the Gospels with the Pharisees. great form of religiosity within the church but they deny him. They deny him, they inwardly reject this God that they profess with their mouths. How? Paul says by their works, by the deeds that they do. In 1 John 2.4 John says, whoever says, I know him, like these men do, What does not keep his commandments is a liar. It's a liar and the truth is not in that person. They've departed from the truth. Their works expose the corruption and the pollution of their hearts because they themselves, these false teachers, are detestable, abominable. They're completely blameworthy people. And when we see that, when the pure in heart see that, if you have good spiritual sense you should be disgusted. You should be disgusted in heart finding their actions and their character detestable when you compare that to God's truth. These are men who are disobedient. They've disobeyed God. They've disobeyed God's word. They've disobeyed God's law, his gospel, and church authority. These are the rebels that we see in Numbers 16 who opposed Moses. These are the diamond hard hearts of resistance that Zechariah talks about in chapter 7. And as we'll see here in chapter 3 verse 3 of this book of Titus this is representative character of people who are unconverted, unsaved, and that's why Paul says they are unfit for any good work, they're disqualified for any good deed, they cannot stand the test, they're worthless. It's the sense of they are the dross that is being scraped away from the silver of the church. They're reprobate and they're unfit for Christian service, unable to do anything based upon true faith. And so they are descriptive, these words are descriptive of people who persist in false doctrine. Are you, listener here this morning, are you following after that which is true or are you allowing your mind to be swayed and pulled away by false doctrine? When false teachers arise and multiply, and I didn't say if, I said when, because it's a reality that it will happen. When they arise and multiply, how does the church need to respond? True teachers must also abound. We don't need a teacher, we need many men. He said appoint elders in these many Cretan churches. We need men in every city. And we could charge out and say, we need men everywhere. And what's the temptation going to be then? Hey, you remember those 14 qualities that you said, Paul? Well, this guy can only do 10. There is a danger. How about that? 10 out of 14. That's the danger. We're going to potentially ignore flaws in men's character or conduct. Or yeah, he kind of believes a few different things that are kind of weird. So he has some deficiencies in his doctrine. But he's such a great speaker. So we still want this man to be in. We just need to get more men in. That's the risk, the temptation. And what happens when we do that? What happens when we appoint unqualified men is that many of those men who are unqualified will turn out to be the very false teachers that Paul's telling Titus that he needs to be aware of. That's the risk and so we the church then we can't abdicate from verses five through nine. We have to insist upon God's standards and we have to have individual men who strive after that standard in the spirit to meet God's standards. And when we do it the right way, when blameless men are appointed as overseers, people in the church will have a godly, a proper respect for the men who lead. And so when those men then sharply deal with false doctrine, the church isn't going to cower and say, what are you doing? They're going to know that this is the right thing to do, the right way to do it. And when you have that godly respect of your leaders, then you know that you can go to them and say, hey, I heard this teaching. Sounds kind of interesting. What do you think? What does the Word of God have to say about what my friend has been telling me, what my neighbor's been telling me, what my family member's been telling me? You can come to them. The contamination that these false teachers inject into the church must be stopped, must be replaced with sanctification. We have an obligation before Christ to keep the church holy and pure and I would encourage all of us together let's stand together for God's truth. But I warn you, this morning, if you listen to false teachers, if you follow their destructive teachings, you are ultimately going to fail the test, the most important test, and that is of being united to Christ. You will have denied God and his truth. And so here's the admonition. Seek what is true. And I'm going to use the same verse that was featured in Sunday School, James 1 27. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this, to visit orphans and widows and their affliction, that was the focus of Sunday School, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. God isn't fooled by those who have an outward spiritual appearance. You might fool everybody else for years but God is not fooled by such outward manifestations of spirituality, true holiness. will be demonstrated by real Christian character. It's going to come out the real Christian character. They will be known by not having denied God but by having embraced and loved God by their works which show that they have lived and not abandoned the truth. I pray that that is so in us today. And as we continue forward that we will see false doctrines for what they are and remove them as necessary because the truth of God is worth it. Let's stand for the truth. Shall we pray? Father in heaven, how I thank you for your word. Your word is a rock. Your word is that which we can stand upon. Even when our minds become confused, we can come back and say, what does your word say? Let me read it again for the hundredth time. Your word is truth, O Lord. You are truth. I pray, Lord, that you will equip our minds, make them cemented in your truth this week. And so that as we interact with the world, as we interact here in the church, That as we hear falsehood, that we will cling to the truth. Oh Lord, help us to be people of the truth. Help us to stand for the truth. I pray this now in the name of Jesus. Amen.